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This poem is taken from PN Review 219, Volume 41 Number 1, September - October 2014.

‘The Evacuee’ Bernard O'Donoghue
my Manchester mother

Raincoats unbelted, socks up to their knees,
in films of the first weeks of the War
boys and girls of eight or ten march bravely
to their placements in the countryside,
escaping bombs expected in the city.
Having, too, escaped from the threatened city,
she had woken up in those same weeks
...


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