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

Nadine on the Kinkell Braes Hugh Ouston

In the early dawn when herring gulls
Fly rings around the silver moon,
From fishing out along the braes
Nadine is walking home alone.
She carries in her sandy hand
Her bamboo rod and wire; a sack
With two bubbling and dying crabs
Dries out over her bended back.
A new-born wind combs cold Kinkell,
Unweaves her jersey, makes goose-flesh
The heart beneath her dirty shirt,
The hard salt skin across her chest.
Black seabirds indistinctly fly
On the extraordinary dawn;
They have no half-light, but Nadine
Stumbles inside a hazy yawn.
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