Classic Poem

I speak of it as a thing with a future
At present badly done by amateurs neglecting
An opportunity to be discriminating

It being an occupation in itself
It should not be confused with reticence
Or the perceptions of a shy man
Nor should it be segregated on a question of morality

To fit the part the incentive
Must be more than casual
Rather a weakness at the very roots
An appetite which leaves one flat, an inability
To get into the dirt, thread worms upon a hook,
Wash a floor clean; a vacancy
Which cannot read a page without a recognition
Of the symmetry of the thumb lying along it;
A similarity of gesture as professional as the whore's
And to the tough taste as flavorless
The loyalties of such are more perishable
Than the crust of an egg

A dislike of sweat and odor, of blowing the nose,
Of raising children clears the emotions to the hem of the garment only.
(O how sacred is the hem of thy garment hem of thy eyelid hem of thy hem
O how sacred art thou to me thou delicate-veined thou wild boy.
Benvenuto swathed in silks the limbs of his fresh one his virgin
And the boy went among the women as a girl and made free with them
And then told them that he was with child
And the women did lay their compassionate hands upon his belly
And upon his limbs and upon the flesh of his thighs
In commiseration, and then were their hearts rended with sweet anguish
And with terror as the rod blossomed in their fingers.)

By incentive is meant that fidelity to purpose
Which determines one to hold a parasol
Over tomato plants to shield them from the elements.
I prefer a rabbit neatly killed (to serve a purpose not create one)
Who under the knife blade peels like a ripe fig
The skin while still warm ripped in a piece from the royal satin flesh
Which it has lipped with intimate tenacity
Such a caress is worth a generation of these indecisions
We are asked to accept as celebrations of a genuine passion

Nor does this signify that man cannot be to man a complement
Rather than a reflection of his own devices
Or that one might surprise those generosities, not of the mind
But richer, warmer than, which women find it imperative
(But no less valid) to make use of.
Nor does this state an apprehension placing
Women as women, men as fairies with a finality
That permits no accident

A cat is initiated by his mother's lovers
A necessary preamble to the method and satisfaction of fathering kittens.
The human proceeds in the reverse direction
Establishing a home, hearth, fireside within those organs
Which respond like blind men to a lick of fire.
Put under glass some of them could be worn as cameos
Their femininity plumbed to the depths of
A tedious vocation as engrossing as bee-raising
And as monotonous to the outsider.