The Whip

By Robert Creeley 1926–2005 Robert Creeley

I spent a night turning in bed,

my love was a feather, a flat

sleeping thing. She was

very white

and quiet, and above us on

the roof, there was another woman I

also loved, had

addressed myself to in

a fit she

returned. That

encompasses it. But now I was

lonely, I yelled,

but what is that? Ugh,

she said, beside me, she put

her hand on

my back, for which act

I think to say this

wrongly.

Robert Creeley, “The Whip” from The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975. Copyright © 1982 by Robert Creeley. Reprinted by permission of University of California Press.

Source: The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975 (University of California Press, 1982)

The Whip

The Whip

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