566
PARTISAN REVIEW
with me the root
I suddenly see her rising,
resonant and serene,
drawing the whims around her
windy drapes, the dolphins
flattered into powerful
japes ...
I
see–
with me the root-
her coming, the heart's thump
and trumpeting, the bulky breath
the toot that brings
so wins its bigger banging wings .
I see; and head, pine–
apple headhunter-shrunk,
thorny with frowns,
concentrates its brown and bite–
had to for such sight-
into sweet;
seeing is,
that with its spiny carapace,
pronged, touching daggers
on all sides, a savage face,
brides bitterness into hardest
core of succulence inside.
Amid ocean of wish
and a leaky world, a leaky
day that nowhere holds,
the core of insulating cold,
the commotion, splattering spume,
of my horny notion
turns
into her nation, obedient
as waves, bowing whites, vestal–
in devotion, tidy, to the tune–
maidens to the moon.
T.
WEISS
