E L I Z A B E T H R O B I N S O N
__________________________________________________________SEVEN POEMS
W
You take and then
you extrapolate on the taking
so each take
is at a remove from the last
and the payment we
draw from these confiscations
has no image.
She was not a woman.
There is no red, no white.
Mulct
only. Each diminishment
beatifies the taker
whose interior, like an organ,
swells,
not red, but perhaps
fairer, the generosity
you would claim
for yourself. You strew
the edge farther than
the swindle. You yourself
had no face, but you took
to smiling.
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