Dream Song 11: His mother goes The mother comes & goes

By John Berryman

His mother goes. The mother comes & goes.

Chen Lung's too came, came and crampt & then

that dragoner's mother was gone.

It seem we don't have no good bed to lie on,

forever. While he drawing his first breath,

while skinning his knees,

while he was so beastly with love for Charlotte Coquet

he skated up & down in front of her house

wishing he could, sir, die,

while being bullied & he dreamt he could fly—

during irregular verbs—them world-sought bodies

safe in the Arctic lay:

Strindberg rocked in his niche, the great Andrée

by muscled Fraenkel under what's of the tent,

torn like then limbs, by bears

over fierce decades, harmless. Up in pairs

go we not, but we have a good bed.

I have said what I had to say.