This is for you, with your umbrella, Your suitcase stuffed with roadmaps, And the fatal blouse unbuttoned. This is not for your precarious bedroom. I couldn't help but notice As several of your possessions assumed false identities: The clock, for instance, And your mother's portrait. I couldn't keep my eyes off that space between your breasts, A tract of liberated ground. And later, when the bed sank Like an earthen raft in the middle of a field, well... Just the same, This is for that night your body was neither here nor there. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHEN I RISE UP by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS WAR by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE RING AND THE CASTLE by AMY LOWELL DRAW THE SWORD, O REPUBLIC by EDGAR LEE MASTERS CORTEGE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |