This poem is taken from PN Review 52, Volume 13 Number 2, November - December 1986.
Poems
The Secret
I will not strive to win
Your body to touch, to waken
With these hot hands the flesh
Imagined well enough
Night and day.
I will disdain to move
To gleams of appetite
Your mind, that might be swayed
By the effect of speech
Such as this.
I will wholly delete
From the world's polite stare
Evidence of any love
Beyond the veiled witness
Of this song.
I will forbid my heart
To entertain at night
...
I will not strive to win
Your body to touch, to waken
With these hot hands the flesh
Imagined well enough
Night and day.
I will disdain to move
To gleams of appetite
Your mind, that might be swayed
By the effect of speech
Such as this.
I will wholly delete
From the world's polite stare
Evidence of any love
Beyond the veiled witness
Of this song.
I will forbid my heart
To entertain at night
...
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