Wake Forest University Press

Irish Poetry

John Montague - The Great Cloak (paperback)

Poem from The Great Cloak (1978) by John Montague

The Great Cloak
for Evelyn

Smooth and long to swathe
a handsome woman’s body,
a shape tall as a bell,
obedient to a fingernail.

Or to encompass her lover
as well, snug as flea deep
in featherbed, while their bodies
converse, on a green slope.

Or when the baby is born
to wrap the morsel tenderly
while beasts browse around them
naturally as in Bethlehem.
 

$6.95
1978   63 pages
paperback
ISBN 978-0-916390-07-5