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This poem is taken from PN Review 130, Volume 26 Number 2, November - December 1999.

Three Poems Medbh McGuckian

Night when One Hears the Sea without Seeing it

The silvery old house
on its neck of high ground
had made itself very heavy
through thinking.

The golden hand of the clock
ordered him into harm's way,
and braided his thoughts into a whip
unrestful as his eyes.

His high plaid slippers
were almost at sea-level
on the blue overstuffed chair
with no arms he had bought to write in,

to see how lightly his unpushed
quality of touch could hold
the pen. As fast as a dream,
...


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