Three Knaves: birthday

Is this then a touch?

quivering me to a new identity,

Flames and ether

making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me

reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood

playing out lightning to strike

what is hardly different from myself;

On all sides prurient provokers

stiffening my limbs,
Straining the udder of my heart

for its withheld drip,

Behaving licentious toward me,

taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best,

as for a purpose,

Unbuttoning my clothes,

holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion

with the calm

of the sunlight and pasture-fields,

Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
They bribed to swap off with touch,

and go and graze at the edges of me;
No consideration, no regard

for my draining strength or my anger;
Fetching the rest of the herd

around to enjoy them a while,

Then all uniting to stand

on a headland and worry me. [ww]

Three Knaves