just as I am I come knee bent and body bowed this here's sorrow's home my body's southern song cram all you can into jelly jam preserve a feeling keep it sweet so beautiful it was presumptuous to alter the shape of my pleasure in doing or making proceed with abandon finding yourself where you are and who you're playing for what stray companion

Copyright © 2006 by Harryette Mullen. Reprinted from Recyclopedia with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota.

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Poems by This Author

Muse & Drudge [why these blues come from us] by Harryette Mullen why these blues come from us All She Wrote by Harryette Mullen Forgive me, I’m no good at this. I can’t write back. I Black Nikes by Harryette Mullen We need quarters like King Tut needed a boat. A slave Page 1 / Sapphire's lyre styles by Harryette Mullen Sapphire's lyre styles Page 34 / if your complexion is a mess by Harryette Mullen if your complexion is a mess Page 35 / the essence lady by Harryette Mullen the essence lady Page 39 / arrives early for the date by Harryette Mullen arrives early for the date Page 5 / sun goes on shining by Harryette Mullen sun goes on shining Page 72 / mister arty martyr by Harryette Mullen mister arty martyr Present Tense by Harryette Mullen Shedding Skin by Harryette Mullen Pulling out of the old scarred skin Tanka Diary [Awakened too early on Saturday morning] by Harryette Mullen Awakened too early on Saturday morning Tanka Diary [Don't need picket fences, brick wall] by Harryette Mullen Don't need picket fences, brick wall [Hiking up Topanga Canyon] by Harryette Mullen [My Visitor from Nebraska] by Harryette Mullen

Further Reading

Poems about Beauty Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever] by John Keats Couture by Mark Doty Design for a Silver Box in the Shape of a Melon, 1918 by Jonathan Thirkield Faults by Sara Teasdale It's obvious by Greg Hewett Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Anne Sexton The Part of the Bee's Body Embedded in the Flesh by Carol Frost Trees Need Not Walk the Earth by David Rosenthal Poems about Cooking Artichoke by Richard Foerster Eating The Bones by Ellen Bass The Dry Spell by Kevin Young