The Sonnets: XLI
By Ted Berrigan
banging around in a cigarette she isn’t “in love”
my dream a drink with Ira Hayes we discuss the code of the west
my hands make love to my body when my arms are around you
you never tell me your name
and I am forced to write “belly” when I mean “love”
Au revoir, scene!
I waken, read, write long letters and
wander restlessly when leaves are blowing
my dream a crumpled horn
in advance of the broken arm
she murmurs of signs to her fingers
weeps in the morning to waken so shackled with love
Not me. I like to beat people up.
My dream a white tree
Copyright Credit: Ted Berrigan, “Sonnet XLI” from The Sonnets. Copyright © 2000 by Alice Notley, Literary Executrix of the Estate of Ted Berrigan. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: The Sonnets (Penguin Books, 2000)