Neck
That isn’t done Grabbing your girlfriend’s neck
isn’t done I mean it is done by god
often enough but not when I’m the girl
or the friend I love you with all my soul
and all my I don’t know what else to say
my friendliness and my girlishness
but by god my friend do not grab my neck
Neck with me nestle your neck into mine
I’ve been watching the necks of the geese
my geese our geese flying over our heads
and I’ve said goose wander in my chamber
You goose don’t be a gander and don’t be
a geek Be a Greek be a pagan be
a lover of life of me of my neck
Grab my neck my shoulder or my breast
but sweetly if you must my sweet goose
or I’ll call the police Not that the Greeks
were any better at love than we are
always stabbing at their men and their gods
but my god better than the Romans
and their strikes at the neck their split necks
All they did was say do not do do not
do that and thwack off with their head
So if you ask me what Greek is I say
give me a Greek over a Roman
Oh romance romance it’s Greek to me
it was Greek to the Romans and to me
to my roaming heart and my Grecian
gods to my friends and my gods and you
you my silly goose and my strangler
– Sarah Arvio
published in The New Yorker and collected in Cry Back My Sea (Knopf, 2021).
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