Repeat

May Day

Phillis Levin

I've decided to waste my life again,

Like I used to: get drunk on

The light in the leaves, find a wall 

Against which something can happen, 

Whatever may have happened 

Long ago—let a bullet hole echoing 

The will of an executioner, a crevice 

In which a love note was hidden, 

Be a cell where a struggling tendril 

Utters a few spare syllables at dawn. 

I’ve decided to waste my life 

In a new way, to forget whoever 

Touched a hair on my head, because 

It doesn’t matter what came to pass, 

Only that it passed, because we repeat 

Ourselves, we repeat ourselves. 

I’ve decided to walk a long way 

Out of the way, to allow something 

Dreaded to waken for no good reason, 

Let it go without saying, 

Let it go as it will to the place 

It will go without saying: a wall 

Against which a body was pressed 

For no good reason, other than this.

From May Day by Phillis Levin. Copyright © 2008 by Phillis Levin.

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/may-day