Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(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 Sinead Morrissey 'The Lightbox' Philip Terry 'What is Poetry' Ned Denny 'Nine Poems after Verlaine' Sasha Dugdale 'On learning that Russian mothers buy their soldier sons lucky belts inscribed with Psalm 90 to wear into battle' Rod Mengham 'Cold War Hot Air'
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 229, Volume 42 Number 5, May - June 2016.

Hair Elaine Feinstein
How can I reassure my dismayed self in the mirror
as a hank of hair comes away in the comb?
The stuff is soft and pale, as if from a days-old baby,
and the shorn face looking back from the glass
reminds me of those bewildered French women
with scalps exposed and features suddenly huge

whose heads were shaved for sleeping with German soldiers.
My hair loss is only the common response
to chemicals which enter the blood searching out
cancer cells which have escaped surgery.
Nothing hurts. I don’t feel ill. I simply sit
here, in my white pod, listening for beeps.

With what insensate vanity did I once give my age
with such precision as the years went by
as if to invite astonishment? Dunbar had Pride
lead in his ‘Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins’
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image