“Gazing close-up at your underjaw,
a blazon of barbaric decoration,
a sprinkle of black rubies, clots from shaving,
panting in measure to your wearied breath,
I see the world before the dawn of woman,
a jungle of long-horned males, their scab of rapine,
rhinoceros on Eden’s rhinoceros rock.…
You hold me in the hollow of your hand—
a man is free to play or free to slack,
shifty past the reach of ridicule.
A woman loving is serious and disarmed,
she is less distracted than a pastured mare,
munching as if life depended on munching.…
Like the animals, I am humorless.”
Even a green parrot can talk one book,
sing up his second-rate, most writers do;
Christians and women have thought all men are evil,
though nothing living wholly disappoints God.
Living with you is living a long book
War and Peace, from day to day to day,
unable to look off or answer my name.
My springless step still stalks for youngman’s wildweed,
the goldfinch-nest defying euphemism,
the God-borne instant never letting up.
Where will you take me in the fizz of winter?
Darling, the cork, though fat and black, still pulls,
new wine floods our prehistoric veins—
the day breaks, impossible, in our bed.