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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  From “May Woods”

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

From “May Woods”

By Zella Muriel Wright
 
(To J. K.)

(From A Pagan Anthology, 1918)

YOU are like all the others—
“Will she
Or will she not
Give me her body?”
  That is the question        5
That teases and torments you
And sends you reeling forth
Into the night,
Singing to the stars;
Or striding angrily down dusty roads,        10
Striking off the heads
Of helpless flowers
With your cane.
 
And I smile at your agitation
The smile you call inscrutable.        15
I smile because I know
Only too well
That sooner or later—sooner or later—
Even I,
  Knowing the pain        20
And the cost of the aftermath of love….
And after you have known
The full strength of my arms
To hold you.
After you have felt the sting and fire of me,        25
After you have known my longest kiss—
A kiss which almost strangles—
 
Instead of being more to you
I shall be less…..
 
And you will go        30
Because
No longer
I smile
The smile
The smile you call inscrutable.        35