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More poems by Stanley KunitzStanley Kunitz | Print this page.Print | Order a PoetryNotes Analysis of this poem.Analysis | View and Write CommentsComments (3)

After The Last Dynasty

Stanley Kunitz

Reading in Li Po
how "the peach blossom follows the water"
I keep thinking of you
because you were so much like
Chairman Mao,
naturally with the sex 
transposed
and the figure slighter.
Loving you was a kind
of Chinese guerilla war.
Thanks to your lightfoot genius
no Eighth Route Army
kept its lines more fluid,
traveled with less baggage
so nibbled the advantage.
Even with your small bad heart
you made a dance of departures.
In the cold spring rains
when last you failed me
I had nothing left to spend
but a red crayon language
on the character of the enemy
to break appointments,
to fight us not
with his strength
but with his weakness,
to kill us
not with his health
but with his sickness.
Pet, spitfire, blue-eyed pony,
here is a new note
I want to pin on your door,
though I am ten years late
and you are nowhere:
Tell me,
are you stillmistress of the valley,
what trophies drift downriver,
why did you keep me waiting?


Submitted by Jen

Added: 11 Mar 2002 | Last Read: 11 Feb 2012 11:56 PM | Viewed: 4753 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3583/ | Viewed on 11 February 2012.
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