Emmy Veronica Sanders

From “Antagonisms”

SEE!

I thrust at you laughter—

Clusters of pomegranate in the sun.

See!

I dangle clusters of red sun-ripened laughter

Before your eyes, that are colorless

Like the eyes of the fishes.

What are you peering at,

Sallow-face?

Your hand—

It is limp and clammy;

It has never clutched at a thing

Strongly.

Those pale pinched lips of yours

Have never blossomed under kisses,

Have never whispered little words

Luminous with tenderness.

Rigid one!

My laughter,

Let it shake you like a wind—

Red wind

Tearing to shreds

Your pale hypocrisy.

My laughter,

Let it thaw

Those boulders of black ice—

Your hard moralities,

Your bleak utilities—

And sow violets in their place.

There is laughter ringing softly

From the golden shell of the sky.

There is laughter ringing in the rills

That come tripping down the bronze and purple hillside

Insolently.

Trees are swaying to and fro,

Laughter in the rustle and the flitter of their leaves.

And the air is warm and tremulous with laughter

Rising from the lips that lie

Mute beneath tombstones.

Deaf one,

Listen

To the scarlet wind!

There are sobs in the wind.