Saturday, August 02, 2008
The Ribboned Self of Desire (poem)
The Ribboned Self of Desire
"Desire can make anything into a god,"
as say, when I was young, and desired you
or you,
it was not your flesh I was after,
oh, no,
something else,
something less tangible,
like the aftertaste of an orange
in the mouth,
or the feeling of silk
which passes over your body
and then is gone.
But it was more than these.
It was a longing for communion,
as if a service were underway,
a yearning to enter in,
to know at the deepest levels,
to be made whole.
And I found you
there, waiting
in your radiant garb
again and again,
outside the library
or by the fountain’s edge,
merged with who
you were,
lost you over and over
as you returned to air
"Desire can make anything into a god,"
as say, when I was young, and desired you
or you,
it was not your flesh I was after,
oh, no,
something else,
something less tangible,
like the aftertaste of an orange
in the mouth,
or the feeling of silk
which passes over your body
and then is gone.
But it was more than these.
It was a longing for communion,
as if a service were underway,
a yearning to enter in,
to know at the deepest levels,
to be made whole.
And I found you
there, waiting
in your radiant garb
again and again,
outside the library
or by the fountain’s edge,
merged with who
you were,
lost you over and over
as you returned to air
once more.
Dorothy Walters
August 2, 2008
(Beginning quote is from the poet Mark Doty)
Dorothy Walters
August 2, 2008
(Beginning quote is from the poet Mark Doty)
