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This poem is taken from PN Review 133, Volume 26 Number 5, May - June 2000.

Seven Poems Ian Tromp

At the Window

After all the words after nights
     and mornings after my hands
forgot the shape of wanting you
     after all the leaving
and the emptiness you will never see
     after arrivals and more departures
after all the words and all the silences
     I realise I do not know
what has happened or why.


That Summer

The room filled with pale blue light:
the same sash window that sliced my thumb
wide open onto the silent street.

After hours of not sleeping, I came to you,
rocked you awake, said 'I want you
...


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