Driving me away
is easier
than saying
goodbye--

kissing the air,
the last syllable
of truth
being always
two lips compressed
around
emptiness--

the emptiness
you dread
yet return to
as just punishment,
just reward.

Who
loved you
so relentlessly?
Who lost you
in that howling void
between infancy
and death?

It is punctuated
by the warm bodies
of women,
who hold you for a while
then run
down that echoing corridor
doing
as they are told.

© Erica Mann Jong

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