The man: Here in these rows are wombs that have decayed, and in this row are breasts that have decayed. Bed beside stinking bed. Hourly the sisters change. Come, quietly lift up this coverlet. Look, this great mass of fat and ugly humours was once some man's delight, was ecstasy and home. Come, look at the shrewd scars upon this breast. Do you feel the rosary of small soft knots? Touch it, no fear. The yielding flesh is numbed. Here's one who bleeds as though from thirty bodies. No one has so much blood.— This one was cut: they took a child out of her cancerous womb. They let them sleep. All day, all night.—They tell The newcomers: here sleep will make you well.—But Sundays one rouses them a bit for visitors.— They take a little nourishment. Their backs are sore. You see the flies. Occasionally the sisters wash them. As one washes benches.— Here the grave rises up about each bed. And flesh is levelled down to earth. The fire burns out. And sap prepares to flow. Earth calls.— | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A TEMPLE TO FRIENDSHIP by THOMAS MOORE RAILWAY DREAMINGS by ALEXANDER ANDERSON ON THE BIRTH OF A FRIEND'S ELDEST SON by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD TO BARON DE STONNE.....TO FIND HIMSELF BETWEEN by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD GROWTH by MILDRED TELFORD BARNWELL THE EMANCIPATION OF HIS MISTRESS' PERFECTIONS by FRANCIS BEAUMONT THE HEART'S COLLOQUY by WILLIAM ROSE BENET INAUGURATION SONNET: WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |