The Torso: Passages 18


      Most beautiful! The red-flowering eucalyptus
                    the madrone, the yew
                    Is he...

       So thou wouldst smile, and take me in thine arms
       the sight of London to my exiled eyes
       Is as Elysium to a new-come soul

              If he be Truth
              I would dwell in the illusion of him

  His hands unlocking from chambers of my male body

            such an idea in man's image

       rising tides that sweep me towards him

              _. . .homosexual?_

                 and at the treasure of his mouth

              pour forth my soul

                 his love   commingling

  I thought a Being more than vast, His body leading
            into Paradise,   his eyes
              quickening a fir in me,   a trembling

            hieroglyph:   At the root of the neck

       the clavicle, for the neck is the stem of the great artery
         upward into his head that is beautiful

                 At the rise of the pectoral muscles

       the nipples, for the breasts are like sleeping fountains
         of feeling in man, waiting above the heat of his heart,
         shielding the rise and fall of his breath, to be
         awakened

                 At the axis of his mid hriff

       the navel, for in the pit of his stomach the chord from
         which first he was fed has its temple

                 At the root of the groin

       the pubic hair, for the torso is the stem in which the man
         flowers forth and leads to the stamen of flesh in which
         his seed rises

  a wave of need and desire over   taking me

              cried out my name

       (This was long ago.   It was another life)

                        and said,

            What do you want of me?

  I do not know, I said.   I have fallen in love.   He
     has brought me into heights and depths my heart
             would fear   without him.   His look

       pierces my side . fire eyes .

     I have been waiting for you, he said:
                 I know what you desire

            you do not yet know   but through me .

     And I am with you everywhere.   In your falling

     I have fallen from a high place.   I have raised myself

            from darkness in your   rising

                      wherever you are

       my hand in your hand   seeking   the locks, the keys

     I am there.   Gathering me, you gather

            your Self .

       For my Other is not a woman but a man

       the King upon whose bosom let me lie.

                                                  1968

  by Robert Duncan