AND now
the best of all
is
to be alone, to possess one’s soul in silence.
Nakedly to be alone,
unseen
is better
than anything else in the world,
a relief like death.
Always
at
the core of me
burns
the small flame of anger, gnawing
from trespassed contacts, from red-hot finger
bruises, on my
inward flesh.
A
lways
in the eyes of
those who loved me
I
have seen at last the image of him they loved
and took for me
mistook for
me.
And always
it was a simulacrum, something
like me, and like a gibe at
me.
So now I want,
above all things
to
preserve my nakedness
from the gibe of image-making love.