by James Broughton
Had my soul tottered off to sleep
taking my potency with it?
Had they both retired before I could
leaving me a classroom somnambulist?
Why else should I at sixty-one
feel myself shriveling into fadeout?
Then on a cold seminar Monday
in walked an unannounced redeemer
disguised as a taciturn student
Brisk and resolute in scruffy mufti
he set down his backpack shook his hair
and offered me unequivocal devotion
He dismissed my rebuffs and ultimatums
He scoffed at suggestions of disaster
He insisted he had been given authority
to provide my future happiness
Was it possible he had been sent
from some utopian headquarters?
I went to his flat to find out
* * *
He had two red dogs a yellow cat
a girl roommate an ex boyfriend
and a bedroom ceiling covered
with blue fluorescent stars
But he was ready to renounce anything
that would not accommodate me
He said I held the key to his existence
He said he knew when he first saw me
that I was the reason for his birth
He claimed that important deities
had opened his head three times
to place my star in his brow
This is preposterous I said
I have a wife in the suburbs
I have mortgages children in-laws
and a position in the community
I thoroughly sympathize said He
Why else have I come to your rescue?
These exchanges gave me diarrhea
I tried leaving town on business
but I kept remembering the warmth
that flowed through his healing fingers
We met for lunch at Hamburger Mary's
and borrowed a bedroom for the afternoon.
He brought a bouquet of red roses
and a ruby-fat jug of red wine
He hung affection around my neck
and massaged the soles of my feet
He offered to arrange instant honeymoons
and guarantee the connecting flights
Are you mad? I said You are half my age
Are you frightened of your fate? said He
* * *
At Beck's Motel on the 7th April
we went to bed for three days
disheveled the king size sheets
never changed the Do Not Disturb
ate only the fruits of discovery
drank semen and laughter and sweat
He seasoned my mouth
sweetened my neck
coddled my nipple
nuzzled my belly
groomed my groin
buffed my buttock
garnished my pubes
renovated my phallus
remodeled my torso
until I cried out
until I cried
I am Yes
I am your Yes
I am I am your
Yes Yes Yes
* * *
He took a studio of his own
on the windward slope of Potrero
where I spent afterschool hours
uprooting my ingrown niceties
and planting fresh beds of bliss
His sheets were grassy green
* * *
In his long bathtub
he sat me opposite him
and scrubbed away my guilt
With a breakfast of sunbursts
he woke the sleeping princess
in my castle of armor
Waving blueprints of daring
for twin heroes
he roused my rusty knighthood
To the choked minstrel
aching my throat
he profferred concerts of praise
Off the tip of his tongue
I took each tasty love word
and swallowed it whole
for my own
Are you my Book of Miracles? I said
Are you my Bodhisattva? said He
* * *
Ablaze in the thrust of desire
we scathed each other with verve
burned up our fears of forever
streamed ourselves deep in surrender
till I lay drenched under scorch
and joy cried out through my crown
Wondrous Wondrous the merge
Wondrous the merge of soulmates
the surprises of recognition
Wondrous the flowerings of renewal
Wondrous the wings of the air
clapping their happy approval
* * *
I severed my respectabilities
and bought a yellow mobile home
in an unlikely neighborhood
He moved in his toaster his camera
and his eagerness to become
my courier seed-carrier and consort
Above all he brought the flying carpet
that upholsters his boundless embrace
Year after year he takes me soaring
out to the ecstasies of the cosmos
that await all beings in love
One day we shall not bother to return
Ecstacies: 1970-1986, 1982.
Photo Credit: Wondrous The Merge, James Broughton and Joel Singer, Randy LaMorte, Photographer, San Jose, CA. 1994.