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This poem is taken from PN Review 46, Volume 12 Number 2, November - December 1985.

Two Poems Bill Manhire

ONLOOKERS: A STORY

The plastic bags
are filled with water
and the small bruised fish

swim there, swung from hand
to hand above the footpath
like the lyrical bits

towards the ends of chapters
plagued by the great outdoors: there
above and beyond them are

the wide blue streets without function,
the rambling man who suddenly remembers
his address minus, alas, the name

of the relevant city. He is probably not
inside anything, this man, not even
a story. Probably the action
...


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