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America’s leading review of the arts and intellectual life
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Poems

September 2006

Meeting a friend again after thirty years

by X.J. Kennedy

Take off that mask. I know it’s you.
Those wrinkles, sunken chin,
And goggled eyes can’t quite disguise
Your wry familiar grin.

This is our mutual Halloween.
As though we mean to scare,
We face each other through a screen
Of fake teeth, whitened hair.

X.J. Kennedy isX. J. Kennedy's new and selected poems were published in Spring 2007 by Johns Hopkins.


more from this author

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 25 September 2006, on page 71

Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com

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