NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Competent manipulation of the time theme, sometimes with a fade-out sequence, was noticed in a some of the 23 poems. THE LAST DANCE imagines a point in time at which the Sun decides to cease its gravitational attraction to the Earth, which shoots off orbit:

	Earth would go birling on
	 through Space, and on
	  her greens and blues
	   soft blurring
	    to a distant hue
	     green blue
	      blue-green
	       blue/green
		green

	         blue

	. . . Throw
	that bag of crisps
	back up onto its loop           
	and free the coins
	that paid for it.
	Relieve that woman 
	of her rucksack;
	drop it gently 
	to the floor.

	Every two minutes
	would do, the rucksack
	neither up nor down

 
	. . . Music loud with drink

	spills out of each saloon while cash tills play a tune
	which sure ain't Bluegrass.

	That day I found you
	tiny in the bedroom chair
	translucent skin as soft
	as moths' wings, lit up
	like a paper lantern.

	I brought you tight
	curled hyacinths
	cut lilac sweet
	to scent the room

	Three days later
	you were gone.
	Even the hyacinths
	outlasted you.