Like Casanova and St. Francis of Assisi
His attitude to love is like a sore
He dressed in velvet. He endures the stain
Because he likes its dirtiness. What’s more,
He thinks that love should leave a softened pain.
He nurtures loves, so called, as if he were
A gardener preferring fancy weeds,
Or breeder who prefers a frisky cur.
(He knows that love that’s love has only needs:
It doesn’t have fulfillments.) If there’s gold
Of thrills across a chancre, then so what?
The fruit shaped marzipans of love are old
Ideas. What he prefers is more like smut.
..He thinks that love’s a leper he can kiss
….To give himself a twinge, a throb-like hiss.