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Ferlinghetti

 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
1919-2021

"Away Above a Harborful"

 

Away above a harborful
of caulkless houses
among the charley noble chimneypots
of a rooftop rigged with clotheslines
a woman pastes up sails
upon the wind
hanging out her morning sheets
with wooden pins
O lovely mamma!
her nearly naked teats
throw thrust shadows
when she stretches up
to hang the last of her
so white washed sins
but it is wetly amorous
and winds itself about her
clinging to her skin
so caught with arms upraised
she tosses back her head
in voiceless laughter
and in choiceless gesture then
shakes out gold hair
while in the reachless seascape spaces
between the blown white shrouds
stand out the bright steamers
to kingdom come

© Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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