For Worse, Replies My Friend

For Worse, Replies My Friend

naked you walk
naked you walk
netting is suspended at night from stout cords
stars overhead are the presage of summer
and bright stars

i hold myself here and alone through the mist
lost but not completely
and far out into the dawn the first bird of morning

opens his beak and sings

this dawn is shaped by the sole scream of ecstasy 

and you just stand there free from it 

made free by it

limbs touch the suppleness of a woman
the straightness of a man
now it expresses itself, in control
if we had hope for an excuse, or even love
the apple cuts at your mouth like broken glass
and you lie there like a sick cat in the gutter
while the great bed sighs to itself
i, instead of being dutiful, write letters

the pathology of the life processes is known
as well as the normal
is this an unnamable joy, or a sorrow being named?
there will be some discomfort

1979

added 2/2017