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This poem is taken from PN Review 50, Volume 12 Number 6, July - August 1986.

Poems Elizabeth Smither

ABOVE YOU WITH FLOWERS

The clods above you make an insect's shell
A thorax of dark camouflaging green
Or allergy patches - you are blending in -
Heaven is natural, you take
To it like water or to air -
We knew you should, your private litmus test
Is sudden as flower fields or sleep -
There are sheep nearby and it is lambing week
Signs abound - a tree before you buds
Before we know its name - it looks a twig
Above you with the flowers we drop down
Stars perhaps and love - we could drop wind
Or sun - the variables you direct
Accept our pathos, bringing it to ground.

GRAVES AS EXERCISES
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