roethke gja The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. 111220 ... Ouroboros This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks, Cut stems struggling to put down feet, What saint strained so much, Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life? I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing, In my veins, in my bones I feel it -- The small waters seeping upward, The tight grains parting at last. When sprouts break out, Slippery as fish, I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet. 111223 what's it to you? who go blather from