Ashley Anna McHugh

“Late Air” by Elizabeth Bishop

In Collected Poems of Elizabeth Bishop (1927-1979), Elizabeth Bishop on May 3, 2011 at 11:55 PM

From a magician’s midnight sleeve

the radio-singers
distribute all their love-songs
over the dew-wet lawns.

And like a fortune-teller’s
their marrow-piercing guesses are whatever you believe.

But on the Navy Yard aerial I find

better witnesses
for love on summer nights.
Five remote red lights

keep their nests there; Phoenixes
burning quietly, where the dew cannot climb.

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