Sunday, January 22, 2012

On a Line of My Wife's and Some Others Borrowed from George Oppen

“Why, you’re just a boy with white hair!” 

Which made me think of that other 
White-haired “boy” writing

A poem about a friend visiting 
The rooms of Keats and Shelley, 
Who saw “they were just 
Boys’ rooms” and was moved 
By that.  
 .

And indeed for the poet, 
A poet’s room is a boy’s room 
And he supposes women know it— 

Perhaps the unbeautiful banker 
Is exciting to a woman, a man 
Not a boy gasping 
For breath over a girl’s body.

Perhaps 

That is what remains breathless, beautiful 
In this in which 

Some people never know. 


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