The Kimono, By JAMES MERRILL
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When I returned from lovers’ lane
My hair was white as snow.
Joy, incomprehension, pain
I’d seen like seasons come and go.
How I got home again
Frozen half dead, perhaps you know.
You hide a smile and quote a text:
Desires ungratified
Persist from one life to the next.
Hearths we strip ourselves beside
Long, long ago were x’d
On blueprints of “consuming pride.”
Time out of mind, the bubble-gleam
To our charred level drew
April back. A sudden beam . . .
Keep talking while I change into
The pattern of a stream
Bordered with rushes white on blue.
From “James Merrill: Selected Poems 1946-1985” (Knopf: $25; 339 pp.). Merrill is the author of 11 books of poems. He has also written two novels, two plays, and a book of essays. 1992 by James Merrill.
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