Riddle 78

Often I [            ] floods [            ]
[        ] a kind of [    ] minnows
and [                                              ]
[                   ] me to [                    ]
[            ] as I to him [                  ]
[            ] not at home sat
[                ] the deep sea killed
through skill-work [          ] bent on the brim of the sea.

Riddle 82

The thing is [                ]
[        ] is going, giant, swilling
[                                                      ]
skin not made of flesh, feet [    ]
[                                                      ]
shall mark us all [                       ].

Riddle 97

Once he was alone and worked alone,
read alone, and cooked and ate alone
a red supper, a red celebration,
for when you are cut loose, drifting
as he was, not even trailing strings
behind, it’s necessary, sometimes
to tie down to something central,
embodied, hot. A steak, skillet-
seared, bloody. A bunch of beets
roasted, green tops torn off.
A bottle of wine, garnet-dark.

That was all.
                                    Except to say
he ate in a cave by a pit of dragon-
scale coals. The stone hole glowed.
The coals spat sparks in their ash bed.
The shadows sung softly, susurrant.
They might have been dancing
but were not, only made a sound
which entered him like dance
until he dug in the coals with a branch
then tossed the branch on their backs.
If wispily it smoked through its leaves
                  who, then, flamed?

Send Letters To:

The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN

letters@lrb.co.uk

Please include name, address, and a telephone number.

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences