AN ASPHODEL

O dear sweet rosy

unattainable desire

. . .how sad, no way

to change the mad

cultivated asphodel, the

visible reality. . .

and skin's appalling

petals--how inspired

to be so Iying in the living

room drunk naked

and dreaming, in the absence

of electricity . . .

over and over eating the low root

of the asphodel,

gray fate . . .

 

rolling in generation

on the flowery couch

as on a bank in Arden--

my only rose tonite's the treat

of my own nudity.

 

Fall, 1953