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This poem is taken from PN Review 195, Volume 37 Number 1, September - October 2010.

Hennecker's Ditch Katharine Kilalea

I

I stood at the station like the pages of a book
whose words suddenly start to swim.
Wow. The rain. Rose beetles.

Formal lines
of broad-leaved deciduous trees
ran the length of the platform.
Ickira, trecketre, stedenthal, said the train.

Slow down, please, said the road.

Sometimes you get lucky, said the estate agent
on his mobile phone. It all depends on the seller.

Dear Circus,
Past the thicket, through the window,
the painéd months are coming for us
.
See the bluff, the headland, announcing the presence of water.
See the moths. The trees walk backwards into the dark.


II

Hello? Hello?
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