by Denise Levertov
Who’d believe me if
I said, ‘They took and
split me open from
scalp to crotch, and
still I’m alive, and
walk around pleased with
the sun and all
the world’s bounty.’ Honesty
isn’t so simple:
a simple honesty is
nothing but a lie.
Don’t the trees
hide the wind between
their leaves and
speak in whispers?
The third dimension
hides itself.
If the roadmen
crack stones, the
stones are stones:
but love
cracked me open
and I’m
alive to
tell the tale — but not
honestly:
the words
change it. Let it be —
here in the sweet sun
— a fiction, while I
breathe and
change pace.
From:
The New American Poetry 1945-1960, Donald Allen
Copyright ©:
University of California Press (1999)
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