My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

From Superstition

✦ 25 ✦ From Superstition My cubicle’s a crate containing The bitter fruit of doom. Oh, keep me from descending graveward Besmirched by rented rooms! I’m back again—from superstition— Where once I stayed before. The oak-brown walls, the dark partition, The singing of the door. Remember, how I held the door lock. You struggled in my grip. My forehead brushed your ashen forelock, And violets touched my lip. O dearest, as in former meetings, Now too, your dress still sings And flutters, like a snowdrop greeting The Eastertide of spring! It’s wrong to think you’re not a vestal: You brought a chair one day, Took down my life, as from a shelf, And blew the dust away. ...