Quartet

 

(1)

Undoing the knots

one by one

like untangling an old pile of string.

I want to be at home in my body again.

 

(2)

I remember

watching the film

when the tears would not hold back.

It was when the beautiful boy

14-year-old gymnast

graceful as a swan

talked of being called a sissy

(fear and doubt suddenly in his eyes)

and I could not find a way

to care for him enough

or for me.

 

(3)

The young man looks for sensual men to imitate.

Finding none, he must choose

between hard strength

and a feeling he doesn’t know well enough

to trust.

He is sad to separate from his body.

The loss is deeper than consciousness,

the pain matched only by the agony

of finding himself suddenly alone

in a thick and unexplored forest.

 

(4)

Who, then, will celebrate the beauty

of the man’s body,

that we can love our physical selves

and not turn to women

for second-hand sensuality?

Let me be clear:

I do not wish to separate from women,

only to stop looking for them to fill

that emptiness in myself.