A POEM BY GEORGE OPPEN

 

                           

          NIGHT SCENE


          The drunken man
          On an old pier
          In the Hudson River,

         
          Tightening his throat, thrust his chin
          Forward and the light
          Caught his raised face,
          His eyes still blind with drink...

          Said to my wife
          And to me---
          He must have been saying


          Again---


          Good bye Momma,
          Good bye Poppa


          On an old pier.



                        ---George Oppen
                            from
                            This In Which (1965)

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