Talk of the Heart: Sorrow

Sorrow

Image of my beloved,
sleep on my arm... O my joy!

In the captivating weight of your head, and in the beating of your heart,
there is healing for my grief...

... Mine alone, today, is this heart of yours;
and tomorrow, when your arms grow strong,
and your voice roughens,
and manhood breaks open in your body,
and in your breast the passions bud and put forth leaves...
and your two wings stir to slip loose and take flight —
tomorrow, when you are grown, my boy,
whose, I wonder, will your heart be?

***

Sleep on my arm, and press your cheek against my neck,
and anoint it with the sweat of your brow...
Oh, how long I have yearned for that sweet fragrance —

... Keep your eyelids so... shut fast,
lest your eyes catch the longing knotted on my lips,
and the trembling of anguished eagerness behind my lashes;
lest you ache at the spreading of my sorrow
in my strangled sighs,
and in the creeping of my gentle touch...
... For you are his image in little —