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PN Review 275
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This poem is taken from PN Review 70, Volume 16 Number 2, November - December 1989.

Four Poems Thom Gunn

Nasturtium

Born in a sour waste lot
You labored up to light,
Bunching what strength you'd got
And running out of sight
Through a knot-hole at last,
To come forth into sun
As if without a past,
Done with it, re-begun.

Now street-side of the fence
You take a few green turns,
Nimble in nonchalance
Before your first flower burns.
From poverty and prison
And undernourishment
A prodigal has risen,
...


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