Poem
Leontia Flynn
Casablanca, Backwards
Casablanca, Backwards
Casablanca, Backwards
A plane is taking off in a bank of fog.It leaves the grainy sky, the mapped Moroccan sand.
It is four months since I’ve seen you. In my hand
the video’s controls point in the air.
“Who were we really and what were we before?”
These things are turning over in my mind
as the plane starts banking down. It comes to land
On a grainy fog bank on a concrete plain.
Casablanca backwards; in this version
Rick Blaine sticks his neck out – really – for no one.
As time does not go by. As history gives way to love –
all the rain of Morocco is raining back to the source!
the rain-soaked note resolving into words.
One tear streams back up Ingrid Bergman’s face.
© 2006, Leontia Flynn
Leontia Flynn
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1974)
Leontia Flynn was born in County Down in 1974 and currently lives in Belfast. After taking her MA at Edinburgh, she completed her PhD on the poetry of Medbh McGuckian at Queen’s in Belfast in 2004, joining her subject in the distinguished list of poets associated with the University since the 1960s. Flynn was awarded an Eric Gregory award in 2001, helping her to complete her first collection, T...
Poems
Poems of Leontia Flynn
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Casablanca, Backwards
A plane is taking off in a bank of fog.It leaves the grainy sky, the mapped Moroccan sand.
It is four months since I’ve seen you. In my hand
the video’s controls point in the air.
“Who were we really and what were we before?”
These things are turning over in my mind
as the plane starts banking down. It comes to land
On a grainy fog bank on a concrete plain.
Casablanca backwards; in this version
Rick Blaine sticks his neck out – really – for no one.
As time does not go by. As history gives way to love –
all the rain of Morocco is raining back to the source!
the rain-soaked note resolving into words.
One tear streams back up Ingrid Bergman’s face.
Casablanca, Backwards
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