YES AND NO Comments

Yes has a task:
it protects people.
It kisses them and tucks them in,
tidies up the love left lying around
and sends prying eyes packing:
the people are asleep, they've been playing, they're tired.

But sometimes Yes breaks -
along one of the famous lines of unbearableness -
and bleeds.
Blood flows across the floor through the corridor down the stairs
onto the street
("must flow! must flow!" whisper the silk slippers
under the bed,
whisper the geraniums at the window, whispers a table lamp)
and the people turn their backs to each other
and go on sleeping,
on and on.
(No keeps its ear to their door.)
...
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