Ern_Malley

Sweet William

I have avoided your wide English eyes:

But now I am whirled in their vortex.

My blood becomes a Damaged Man

Most like your Albion;

And I must go with stone feet

Down the staircase of flesh

To where in a shuddering embrace

My toppling opposites commit

The obscene, the unforgivable rape.

One moment of daylight let me have

Like a white arm thrust

Out of the dark and self-denying wave

And in the one moment I

Shall irremediably attest

How (though with sobs, and torn cries bleeding)

My white swan of quietness lies

Sanctified on my black swan’s breast.

— Ern Malley

See http://jacketmagazine.com/17/ern-dl.html

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Author: The Best American Poetry

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