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This poem is taken from PN Review 33, Volume 10 Number 1, September - October 1983.

Two Poems Charles Boyle

BACKGROUND OF NEWS AND WAITING

'We'd have heard if anything had happened.'
I don't know, I keep thinking about that room:
whether the floorboards creak, the single
divan bed where he lies awake. Does he wear a mask,
or they? Do they carry guns? Speak English?
And who pays the bills? Who will live there
afterwards, turning the taps on and off,
...


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