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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  The Answer

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

The Answer

By Orrick Johns (1887–1946)
 
(From Asphalt and Other Poems, 1917)

“CRYING cranes and wheeling crows …
  I’ll remember them,” she said;
And I will be your own, God knows,
  And the sin be on my head.
 
“I will be your own and glad;        5
  Lovers would be fools to care
How a thing is good or bad,
  When the sky is everywhere …
 
“I will be your own,” she said,
  “Because your voice is like the rain,        10
And your kiss is wine and bread
  Better than my father’s grain.”
 
So I took her where she spoke.
  Breasts of snow and burning mouth …
Crying cranes and drifting smoke        15
  And the blackbirds wheeling south.