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  • Nightfall in the Prefectural Capital
  • Paul Christiansen (bio)

From where the sea meets the sky like lipssealing around a secret,

waves rush to crash against the beachthe way minor bureaucrats hurl their names at history books.

On the light-strung avenue, people sit in plastic chairs,shattering translucent carapaces of sea-creatures dredged from the dark,

lugging conversations down familiar tracksworn by the wagon wheels of their parents, and their parent’s parents.

The mountains in the distance lose their shape in the gathering darkthe way people abandon faith in times of prosperity.

It was the same yesterday.It will be the same tomorrow.

And all through the night,color gathers in the tabebuia buds like a revolution. [End Page 170]

Paul Christiansen

Paul Christiansen’s poems have recently appeared in Atlanta Review, Carolina Quarterly, Zone 3, and elsewhere.

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