Democrat, Illinois - The ElectroLounge

36 !
lvi. Night Riders
I heard an old love travelled across the country after she left me,
became a lesbian, found her way into new bedrooms by a picture of her
nude, new crop-haired, smiling in a bathtub. Her father disowned her,
I heard.
Beauty is sexual! The old bigot cried,
& his ragged school still echo the lines.
I heard another love got to be a mama, gave those haunted fingers
& crooning thighs to a bleating newborn, & I wished her well,
remembered that fine ass on another night, begging punishment
& relief.
Beauty is sexual, the old bigot leers from his tall hill,
eye the way each book in the pile tips him a bit higher.
There were others, each burning deep inside lace or cotton. Each
calling some hour love with me, finding in my eyes or touch
carnality’s best path, its blind blowing wash to new seas,
its ferocious beast’s answer called God.
Again, if possible.
Beauty is sexual! The old bigot still among us, still wanting the belt
a little tighter, still right about nothing much that matters.
You were years ago, & you, & you. But you’d know me yet,
I ride the same chaos you bore those nights, I still believe
in that look each of you gave me, the one that said human history
was emerging, caterwauling from your breasts & belly, & its cause
hid in swamps & stars I’d cry & never know.
******
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