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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov was born in Ilford, Essex, England, on October 24, 1923. She went on to publish more than twenty volumes of poetry, four books of prose, and translated three volumes of poetry...
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Losing Track  
by Denise Levertov

Long after you have swung back

away from me
I think you are still with me:

you come in close to the shore
on the tide
and nudge me awake the way

a boat adrift nudges the pier:
am I a pier
half-in half-out of the water?

and in the pleasure of that communion
I lose track,
the moon I watch goes down, the

tide swings you away before
I know I'm
alone again long since,

mud sucking at gray and black
timbers of me,
a light growth of green dreams drying.



By Denise Levertov, from Poems 1960-1967. Copyright © 1966, 1964 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
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