Magoo, I said, remember courtship?
The sense of search: the long leaves
tight against the empty pod? How
annual those yearnings, how unsymmetrical.
A man desires to drive
you to the ever-campus of innocence.
Ha. First a moment in a pub, a drink
to develop the heat, then the moor-walk
for a stumble-kiss at a cow crossing.
Well, remember how the caress was built
from high up to low slopes, the tension
bit by bit becoming a mouse that realizes
crumbs the fare? Oh, no, not begged,
not plurally asked after, not halved
in the heart, but remote, a languish
caved in. Sordidly, et alia, the arms
come apart, the wind blows the smell
of it away, and another perfume mounts
in hardiness. Magoo, a story it becomes.
Just another.
ISSUE: Autumn 1984