ROBERT Ko MARTIN
Is this then a touch? quivenOng me to a new identity,
Flames andethermaking a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip ofme reaching andcrowding to help them,
My flesh andbloodplaying out lightning to stn"ke what is hardly
differentfrom myself,
On allsidesprunoentprovokers stiffening my limbs,
Straining the udder ofmy heartforitswithhelddnp,
Behaving licentious towardme, taking no denial,
DepnOving me ofmy best asfora purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm ofthe sunlight and
pasture-fields,
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
They bnobedto swap offwith touch andgo andgraze at the edges
ofme,
No consideration, no regardformy draining strength army anger,
Fetching the rest ofthe herdaroundto enjoy them a whzle,
Then all uniting to standon a headlandandworry meo
The sentnOes desert every otherpart ofme,
They have left me helpless to a redmarauder,
They all come to the headlandto witness andassist against me
0
I am given up by traitors,
I talk wzldly, I have lost my wits, I andnobody else am
the greatest traitor,
I went myself fiOrst to the headland, my own hands camoedme
there
0
You vzllain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its
throat,
Unclench yourfloodgates, you are too much forme
0
93
This most extraordinary passage is almost certainly a depiction of anal inter–
course, in which Whitman has turned the entire physical experience into
mythic proportions and sees himself reborn as he takes into himself the seed of
the unnamed lover. The cycle is complete, the sexual anticipation is ended
through fulfillment, tension gives way to satisfaction, and the pattern we have
now come
to
recognize is again present : the orgasm is followed by passages of
philosophical summary and visionary perception of unity
0
Something very similar happens a few sections further on, in section 32,
when he turns to the stallion, symbol of the male lover. But the poet who in
section 28 was the so-called passive partner in anal intercourse has now
become the active partner as Whitman makes vivid the banal sexual metaphor
of " riding " someone
0
