51

I have walked with the dead toward the grave
Past the remains of the temporarily living,
The temporarily young
Who jeered and sneered, unafraid,
Unaware they were dead themselves.

Their faces wore digust at my demise
As did mine in the halcyon dream
Of youth when I brushed by
(But lightly, cautiously,)
The crones who chirped:

"How beautiful you are!"
To which I chirped:
"Men
"Are never beautiful.
"Men
"Are handsome!"

Brusque as afraid
To catch a disease
Called age,
Degeneration,
Death.

If these broken bones,
If this contrite heart
Could sing again
It would offer these bones, this heart,
Brute as a bullock before the sacrifice,
Waiting for the hammer to break the brain©bone
And end its bullock©life, this song:

"Why does the man who owns no thumbs
"Offer to roof our houses?
"Why does the man who has no heart
"Look so incessantly for love?"
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"Our thumbless spirits would build
"Not nails nor wood nor stone but spirit
"A house not a house but a spirit
"Where only our spirits could

"Not only dwell
"But swell,
"And bring to this temple the sacrifice
"Of only our animal-selves."


© Dan Goorevitch 1995