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This poem is taken from PN Review 69, Volume 16 Number 1, September - October 1989.

Three Poems Elizabeth Smither

The forecast for night

Showers, though their rhythms may be
Interrupted by wind and gusts
Will not cease in the dark hours
They should continue until first light.

Going to sleep one imagines a dance
With interruptions, a shouldering
A standing to one side, a sweeping
Together and deeper into different arms.

Visiting Koru Pa

A parking space made of fencing rails
Laid flat on grass like the book
Of Sido's husband Captain Colette

In which he intended the history of the Zouaves
Or thoughts of an officer on a general.
A little further on: goats tangled in crucifixes
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