When the Dean said we could not cross campus <br />until the students gave up the buildings, <br />we lay down, in the street, <br />we said the cops will enter this gate <br />over us. Lying back on the cobbles, <br />I saw the buildings of New York City <br />from dirt level, they soared up <br />and stopped, chopped off--above them, the sky, <br />the night air over the island. <br />The mounted police moved, near us, <br />while we sang, and then I began to count, <br />12, 13, 14, 15, <br />I counted again, 15, 16, one <br />month since the day on that deserted beach, <br />17, 18, my mouth fell open, <br />my hair on the street, <br />if my period did not come tonight <br />I was pregnant. I could see the sole of a cop's <br />shoe, the gelding's belly, its genitals-- <br />if they took me to Women's Detention and did <br />the exam on me, the speculum, <br />the fingers--I gazed into the horse's tail <br />like a comet-train. All week, I had <br />thought about getting arrested, half-longed <br />to give myself away. On the tar-- <br />one brain in my head, another, <br />in the making, near the base of my tail-- <br />I looked at the steel arc of the horse's <br />shoe, the curve of its belly, the cop's <br />nightstick, the buildings streaming up <br />away from the earth. I knew I should get up <br />and leave, but I lay there looking at the space <br />above us, until it turned deep blue and then <br />ashy, colorless, Give me this one <br />night, I thought, and I'll give this child <br />the rest of my life, the horse's heads, <br />this time, drooping, dipping, until <br />they slept in a circle around my body and my daughter<br /><br />Sharon Olds<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/may-1968/
