Most Read... Rebecca WattsThe Cult of the Noble Amateur
(PN Review 239)
John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Next Issue Stav Poleg's Banquet Stanley Moss In a concluding conversation, with Neilson MacKay John Koethe Poems Gwyneth Lewis shares excerpts from 'Nightshade Mother: a disentangling' John Redmond revisits 'Henneker's Ditch'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 209, Volume 39 Number 3, January - February 2013.

'The Sea' and Other Poems Caoilinn Hughes
The Sea

The ocean cannot breathe enough to compose itself
but, despite its white paroxysms, it seems to plead:
(the land commiserates, picturing the licked bathymetry)
I am not so broken; not so totally broken as yesterday.

Despite its white paroxysms, it seems to plead:
it is the syzygy that has me all at sea; it is beyond me, beyond me,
but I am not so broken, so totally broken as yesterday.
Just wait for the apogee, when we can laugh the far-flung moon away!

It is the syzygy that has me at sea; it is beyond me, beyond me.
The orbits of the planets are elliptical, so I assemble
in the apogee, when we can laugh the far-flung moon away.
We can lie body by body overlain, and assess the torque I make.

The orbits of the planets are elliptical, so I assemble
the gradual angle of its wane; the gradual space where
we can lie body by interwoven body and assess the torque I make;
the legroom I intimidate between Earth and encroaching Moon.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image