A parasite, attached and fed on blood,
Within the woman he began his growth,
As did his hunger and defining form.
And, writhing, flailing in her cushioned sea,
He felt her warmth but could not feel her pain.
When she evicted him, he screamed himself.
He found the woman ripe with mothers’ milk
When he, a helpless weight of hungry flesh
Could only state his need in wordless wail.
He saw the woman as his one way back
To that Edenic womb that pacifies
Without exacting anything from him.
A gawky, fumbling youth he saw her then
As needed proof of who and what he was–
A hunted hunter, judged by what he caught.
Then, lubricated in the coupling dance
Of life and death, he trembled, numb and spent,
Unsure of anything but repetition.
He saw the woman as a looming lure,
An addict’s fix, another hungry other,
Devouring worlds to justify existence.
He saw how unity, a moment given
In ecstasy of two becoming one,
Could not make jealous any timeless God,
And, too, he saw her as a missing piece
Of puzzles of his image of himself,
As somehow joining isolated themes.
It will no do to ask how his sight failed.
He saw within the hurts of who he was.
His cruelest lies were those he needed most.
In memory of Philip K. Dick and Elvis Presley.