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Peter Redgrove

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Taking Off

In the sexgame I hid my face
In a beard, the game was shaving
Becoming more naked, the soap-and-water
Lathering naked-blade game. Then
There is the fish leaping nude
Out of the cold sea, divesting itself
Of the whole ocean, and the waves
Unrolling off waves, each
More naked than the last, the clouds
That dazzle are the great sea
That has put off its salt
Rising higher in sheer nakedness,
And now the rain puts off
The whiteness of these clouds for more
Lucid falling and transparency, and the perfumes
Pull off their corolla collars, come
Wandering more naked, the scented, coming out
So naked they shine, but not
To eyes, they come out
In the electricity of the earth, when
The great knife-switch of the rain is closed;

And there is punched in the uttering air the flash
Which is air with its clothes off, and
This living woman forgets to say her prayers
Having uttered herself through the collars of her clothes
And, being naked, sleeps without prayers. In the dawn
She throws a pebble into the tide,
Where it resumes its work of self-making in the waves,
While the murderer’s wish is the nakedness of ghost,
He yearns for the perfume which is the memory
Of the dead one haunting her clothes
Marked like the sails of vessels with her voyages;

And she runs naked on the beach of sand
Sparkling with all its circuits, where light runs
Through the myriad fractured dwindling stones.

 

Page(s) 165

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