Anima

When I am dancing in the meadow
with my sword,
swinging it gaily
and humming sweet verses,
stealing the sight of monsters—
then you are a child
climbing trees in bare feet,
noticing new graces in my form.

When I am wretched with lust
and dirty as a dead magpie,
rattling about with hookers,
impervious to your drug—
then you
with long finger nails
and black dizzying hair
will explain to me
precisely how to fuck you.

When I am growing tired with myself
and my illusions
of knighthood and Christhood
and holy cocksmanship—
then you are as mighty as Athena
dressed up in the warshirt of your father,
stoking my heart with battle cries
and prophecies,
guiding me back from death
to Ithaca
where you lay me
on the shore
asleep.

When I am old as an oak
and wander inland
where strangers mistake my oar
for a winnowing fan—
then only dust rises
when I fall into my bed,
but the wind taps a sea-beat
over the sill,
and I have left the little door ajar
where your gray eyed poem
once sat like a quieted bird
veiled for evening.

[see note on poem]

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