POEMS: Assorted Finds...

This Is Just To Sayby William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Copyright © 1962 by William Carlos Williams

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The Hunch
by Kevin Young

She wore red like a razor — cut quite a figure

standing there, her slender danger

dividing day from night, there

from here. Where I hoped to be is near

her & her fragrant, flammable hair —

words like always entering my mouth

that once only gargled doubt.

You see, I been used before like a car…

Between us, this sweating, a grandfather clock's steady tick, soundtrack of saxophones sighing.

It's been too long — a whole week

since love burned me like rye. I had begun

to see the glass as never empty

& that scared me.

She fills me like the lake

fills a canoe — no rescue — & to swim

I never learned how.

From BLACK MARIA by Kevin Young. Copyright © 2005 by Kevin Young.

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Which the Chicken, Which the Egg
by Ogden Nash

He drinks because she scolds, he thinks;
She thinks she scolds because he drinks;
And neither will admit what's true,
That he's a sot and she's a shrew.

From Nash's The Old Dog Barks Backwards , published in 1972.