Since most of my words go to describe
loves that fail, tricks who come & go,
it's no surprise I have no poems for you.
Shall I, trying to write one, say: You
are the man who stole white lilacs from
Harvard to help me find spring in a
dull season? Or that three years ago we
met in a bath house in New York City, strangers
making love in the shelter of sauna & steam?
Would it be too silly to say I like to think
we're Leonard & Virginia Woolf? Don't worry --
I'll not tell which of us is Virginia. But
if I suffer a total breakdown after trying
to write you this poem -- & if you
drop all work on your next essay to
put me together, take care of my cat, they'll
know. Meanwhile, you should know that
when I see aged couples clutching each
other walking quick as they can from
muggers & death -- I see us. & that if you
die first, someone will have to, like they
would a cat without hope or home, put me to,
as it's sometimes called, sleep; & though you
don't believe in heaven, & taught me how empty
& odd my own plan for it was, I imagine we've
already known it -- at the baths, in your
loft bed; in stolen lilacs, in each stroke you
give my cat, my cock; & though I'm agnostic
now, I never question why the archangel who
sent down the devil is called Saint Michael.
Walta Borawski
A text by Michael Bronski here.
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I was here earlier to comment on this poem, but decided to click on the link to Michael Bronski first, and was plunged headlong into a Google search of his work, and lots and lots of reading of his essays. He's good. Oh, and the poem is still truly beautiful.
Perhaps their relationship brought out good writing from both of them:-)
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