Taken, Clarence Caddell (March 2026)

 

Taken

Remind me again just what I’m doing here
Just when I need it, when I stray in dreams
That are not lucid, cloudy as dark beer
That renders maudlin till the drinker deems
All fortunes blurred. But men duller than I
Enjoy without desert—or even with—
By measures I don’t reckon but defy,
Since all of them defy me to the pith.
So weightless in your muslin hippy dress,
You stretched me somehow, straightened out my spine
In moments; yes, you made the air confess
My rightful presence and shored up the mine
Beneath my feet that threatened to collapse.
Of course, you would be taken. Yet, perhaps…