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This poem is taken from PN Review 8, Volume 5 Number 4, July - September 1979.

Three Poems Thom Gunn

I can almost see it
Thin, tall, half-handsome
the thin hungry sweetness
of his smile gone
as he makes up his mind
and walks behind the barn
in his thin pointed boots
over the crackling eucalyptus leaves
and shoots himself in the head

Even the terror
of leaving life like that
better than the terror
of being unable to handle it

Though I hardly knew him
I rehearse it again and again
Did he smell eucalyptus last?
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