Pits | The Poetry Foundation

We go on and we tremble.

God says we can screw now.

God says to give up all your lovers,

Time to die.

When I was younger I drove a Lincoln.

God said to trade it in.

A tad lovely, then, and terrible,

And sick of my own kind,

I wanted to become a woman.

I wanted to wash the feet of other women

In public, I wanted his eyes

On me, olives on the ground.

I gave you my hand,

Now I go around with my sleeve

Tucked in my coat.

I climb no trees, touch

One breast at a time,

Hold no hands myself.

I go on and I tremble

With your back in my blood,

The clap my mother left me.

With me no more, and now,

And forever, and even always

The dust of my feet

In the desert

I give you stranger my sign,

My peace,

But God you remember

You fucked me out of my hand.

Source: Last Panther in the Ozarks (Unpublished Collection)