The Whip

I spent a night turning in bed,
my love was a feather, a flat
 
sleeping thing. She was
very white
 
and quiet, and above us on
the roof, there was another woman I
 
also loved, had
addressed myself to in
 
a fit she
returned. That
 
encompasses it. But now I was
lonely, I yelled,
 
but what is that? Ugh,
she said, beside me, she put
 
her hand on
my back, for which act
 
I think to say this
wrongly.

Copyright Credit: Republished with permission of the University of California Press, Robert Creeley, “The Whip” from The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975., copyright © 1982 by Robert Creeley; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.  
Source: The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975 (University of California Press, 1982)