Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Tim Parksin conversation with Natalia Ginzburg
(PN Review 49)
Next Issue Hal Coase 'Ochre Pitch' Gregory Woods 'On Queerness' Kirsty Gunn 'On Risk! Carl Phillips' Galina Rymbu 'What I Haven't Written' translated by Sasha Dugdale Gabriel Josipovici 'No More Stories' Valerie Duff-Strautmann 'Anne Carson's Wrong Norma'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
PN Review 275
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 23, Volume 8 Number 3, January - February 1982.

Three Poems Rachel Hadas

But when Necessity's yoke was put upon him . . .
Aeschylus, Agamemnon

Tight as a package flying to the island,
how many times I've snuffed stale air,
craned and peered out the stamp-sized window,
seen tiny islands, infinitely thirsty,
soaking up the sea and never sinking.

A fish will hit itself against curved glass
over and over and silently slide off
and nose through sand or plastic weeds or rub
bellies with fellow fish and possibly wonder
what kind of cosmos
slants beyond its bubble.

Fish in a fishbowl, swimmer
out of sight of land-
I have become you both,
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image