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This poem is taken from PN Review 137, Volume 27 Number 3, January - February 2001.

Two Poems Jem Poster

There

It's happening, like almost everything,
in another world: the green
larva unclasps its feet, drops from the ribbed
leaf in the unseen canopy and swings
earthward on a shining thread to fall
just where you might be standing if you'd left
the path ten seconds earlier, losing itself
in the untrodden leafmould; and you can't come at it,
that dark translation, the skin split to disclose
to no one's eyes the hardening
armature and what would be the gleam
of its burnished contours if - but the blackbird's shuffling
the litter somewhere else and you'll not pass
that way again - the thing were brought to light.


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