Seeing You Have . . .
by W.D. Snodgrass
from Heart’s Needle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959)
Seeing you have a woman
Whose loves grow thick as the weeds
That keep songsparrows through the year,
Why are you envious of boys
Who prowl the streets all night in packs
So they are equal to the proud
Slender girls they fear?
She’s like the tall grass, common,
That sends roots, where it needs,
Six feet into the prairies.
Why do you teach yourself the loud
Hankering voices of blue jays
That quarrel branch by branch to peck
And spoil the bitter cherries?
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