To them poetry is
A saint's temptation
And
his
desert, both.
The wide dry heartland sky,
The teetotalling Sahara
Over Chagrin Falls,
When he was last there,
Ideally white as Moby Dick,
Devoured him like a drop.
From the bed,
5.
Through her jiggling cigarette
She recites: "Then you downed
The other bottle of tequila.
You said you were Baudelaire-
Or was it Marlowe?-
You said you were Blake
Talking English with the angels,
And said you were Christ, of course,
But
never
would say
You were yourself. And the voice!
The steady inhuman horror
Making my heart contract!
You cursed me, my makeup,
Cursed the moon, its light,
Cursed that boyfriend,
All your other friends, all the guests.
My God, you cursed the elements!
And separately, by name,
The heliotrope, the heaven-tree,
The star jessamine, the sweet-by-night;
And even the spring pool
With the small ducks, the lily pad;
And even the air we breathed together,
Because I breathed it and the flowers.
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