Years
—for J.P.O.
I have wished you dead and myself dead,
How could it be otherwise.
I have broken into you like a burglar
And you've set your dogs on me.
You have been a hurricane to me
And a pile of broken sticks
A child could kick.
I have climbed you like a monument, gasping,
For the exercise and the view,
And leaned over the railing at the top–
Strong and warm, that summer wind.
Alicia Ostriker, "Years" from The Little Space: Poems Selected and New, 1968-1998. Copyright © 1998 by Alicia Ostriker. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press, www.pitt.edu/~press.
Source:
The Little Space: Poems Selected and New
(University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998)
