FRANK O'HARA

"After Wyatt"

____________________

The night paints inhaling smoke and semen. 

    The frail face pulses like a parachute,

    corridors of shakes melting from the boot

    of that surf north breathes bloody in simoon.

On the tide when the galleon is moved

    by the fatal dolor of mariners,

    a cry becomes whole night of war in us;

    I’m wrecked on what’s no grunted green behoved 

or truly sufferable. The white will

    and jealousy of death beside the sea

    crushes when not all dark and grievable

like the monster who specks the distance, leers,

    collapses, shouts “You can die even me,”

    roaring up, throttles whom he fed for years.