(How she disturbed us—)

How she disturbed us,

Touching her little breasts with her white little

Hands that smelled of perfumed water, a queasy

Reverence made almost nostalgic by the heat

Of afternoons like this before, irrevocable, calamitous,

Which we tell ourselves was a glory worth the while.

Shouldn’t we have stopped there and then

Before we became impalpable whiners,

Sad men, malcontents,

Thinking of the future to forget the past

While we are still young and they forgive us.

The shrill voice of afternoons like this wake us

At midnight among the orchids and canaries,

Sweet, sweet days!

But soon effaced, they leave us longing for unfulfilled promises

Like pariah dogs or union workers,

But aren’t we too old now, our backs too hunched to

Disturb the world and its young men?

Even then our inevitable fate would make us

Profit nothing, lest we too bow our heads

Not in humility or resignation but in a stubbornness dearer to us

Than our own lives. And isn’t she

Beautiful?