I Return in Steam Bath August to D.C. and the Divinity Student Walks me through Scrubby Mounds that Would Be Woods
Natsu kodachi
Hairishi hito no
Ato mo nashi
In the summer grove
I go . . . and not a trace of
Him, the man, remains
~Shiki
The grove he walked me through in summer heat
Is steaming there again. (I go alone
There in my mind.) I feel the kinds of cheat.
I did not know that I would soon disown.
For years I’d waited. I had planned. I wrote
A poem, more a memory turned to spell,
To hand to him. But then I felt the bloat
Of belly as he hugged me. Sickened swell
Of nausea in heart repelled me from
Sweat’s T-shirt and the stomach that embraced
Devotion. Suddenly it turned to scum.
That wobbly fat destroyed all that is chaste.
..The poem turned to puke. I gasp for breath
….Now in my recall. Now he’s only death.