DRUG

Waking one summer
morning in New England, I
remembered the breasts of the girl in my dream
My hands still with the feel
of clutching the round subway strap
I stand still. Life moves on
Her eyes remind me of an owl
In the darkness, my love for her
crawls quietly through weed-filled fields
The owl dives noiselessly
Her mouth holds my tongue
Long hairy legs clamp
tight--my cry of horror
explodes in the moment of love

This is the drug I imbibe each day
a woman I love madly
Her skin is whiter than mine
She has grace, elegance.  Her
fingers caress my
skin always with tenderness
But nightmares come
when love is deepest
Their memory whips my face
pushes me seven different directions
then pieces me back together
and sends me loving
in the constant, violent dreams
of my sweaty bed
Loving, hard work which
rejoices my spirit, tires and confuses my
body--I realize I'm addicted

Such is life in the New England summer
Violence, love, terror.  When I open my mouth
my tongue, that's used to tasting words
tastes a pair of small breasts
I feel poetry and the drug
all mixed together.  They
boil and bubble in
the seven celestial areas of my body
I move on--my life stands still.  I
love that woman, such grace, such elegance
She teaches me to give up poetry
She teaches me, in her flesh, in my 
fatigue and loss, in such
desperate loneliness and
in her love full of terror and hysteria
suddenly to see and to understand
the truth of myself and also
of the thing I'm so deeply addicted to






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