Late for 1 o’clock Mass
for A.W.

1.
Wildgoose girl, wild gooseberries
wild cherries

while others while away the time
wild time, make merry

2.
what you hug me for
I say like I’d say
what you hurt me for or hit me for

fling yourself against me
even in innocence
even innocently like you did

and I am altered
and likely for all times
as one is by assault

so what you hug me for
I say, I ask as if complaining
as if threatening to retaliate

I strike back, I react with a poem
as if to say, take that


© Obediah Michael smith, 2010
1:01 p.m. 29.07.10