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I Take Back All My Kisses
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
I Take Back All My Kisses They got me because if a forest has no end I'll go naked They got me because my mother stood at the edge of a runway for seven years with her head in her hands They got me because an empty street is going on without us They got me because when I drink wine I drink an ocean and when I drink from a river I drink a stranger's childhood They got me because I suffered from whiplash in a dream They got me because I got myself first and last They got me inbetween They came and got me at dawn in Missouri They got me with hands like blond spatulas I let them take me away because the sun was nearer than I expected and because I expected them to take me away and because I had never been there They got me because I was elected to go by the dead They got me because the dead have too many votes but such poor memones They got me because the neighbors have wings They got me because deer are hopeless in more ways than one Because lights are turning on and off in my knees and I can be spotted through a yard of brick They got me yesterday because I wore a see-through skullcap in the gymnasium of sudden deaths Because I spit in the eye of the corner guillotine Thunder Guggenheim got me today the fourth horseman They got me today because a subway wrecked on your lifeline They got me in kindergarten when I dropped the atomic bomb J. Edgar Hoover got me for inventing the milkpod The Preacher got me for eloping with a snail I am convinced I am dizzy and should not be allowed to walk the streets of the city after dark alone I am a menace to the diamonds that shiver in ftowerbeds They got me because I begged them to not take me more seriously than they take themselves Because they believed me when I said I could not change them Because they moved the curtains back expecting to see eternity 73 Because eternity was in back of them and I stood in front As I promised I would never do though I lied I lied because my feet were nailed to a ship of birds They got me because a wall is nothing to another wall Because I drove my heart into the ground with joy As I promised I would never sigh as a tree in the garden of pleases No ghost spoke to me of the blood that drew near me but was not mine They got me because a chimney was found to remember They got me suddenly I had been waiting too long They got me Thursday it was not raining ragas and riches They got me Monday I can recall the tiny noise Saturday they got me my mouth was already gagged They got me Wednesday a most forgettable day They got me Tuesday, Sunday, they got me Friday how easy to unpack those yellowing odd days Because fire is carried in a hat across the desert of birth They got me because my job was to pluck houses from the blind Because women were waiting at the needle of bookstores Because windows are jumping in you and out of you They got me with rubber horns and drugged rabbits They got me when a rug was too tired to fly They got me because I'm trembling beneath a stove They got me because I stalk the stone in daylight They got me because caresses are molded into poems Yes I never said I didn't fall into their hands like mercury Mercury eaten in a fish Mercury flashed across an afternoon nightmare Tomorrow may be different Who will be the last to know 74 ...