MAY WOODS

by: Zella Muriel Wright

      OU are like all the others--
      "Will she
      Or will she not
      Give me her body?"
      That is the question
      That teases and torments you
      And sends you reeling forth
      Into the night,
      Singing to the stars;
      Or striding angrily down dusty roads,
      Striking off the heads
      Of helpless flowers
      With your cane.
       
      And I smile at your agitation
      The smile you call inscrutable.
      I smile because I know
      Only too well
      That sooner or later--sooner or later--
      Even I,
      Knowing the pain
      And the cost of the aftermath of love....
      And after you have known
      The full strength of my arms
      To hold you.
      After you have felt the sting and fire of me,
      After you have known my longest kiss--
      A kiss which almost strangles----
       
      Instead of being more to you
      I shall be less....
      And you will go
      Because
      No longer
      I smile
      The smile
      The smile you call inscrutable.

"May Woods'" is reprinted from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown Publishers, 1921.

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