se lightnings
Those whom I love.

Saying which,
Zarathustra strolled on
Down Fifth Avenue.

The last three lines
Are symptomatic.

EMANUEL MORGAN
_Opus 104_

HOW terrible to entertain a lunatic!
To keep his earnestness from coming close!

A Madagascar land-crab once
Lifted blue claws at me
And rattled long black eyes
That would have got me
Had I not been gay.

ANNE KNISH
_Opus 182_

"HE'S the remnant of a suit that has been drowned;
That's what decided me," said Clarice.
"And so I married him,
I really wanted a merman;
And this slimy quality in him
Won me.
No one forbade the banns.
Ergo--will you love me?"

EMANUEL MORGAN
_Opus 101_

HE not only plays
One note
But holds another note
Away from it--
As a lover
Lifts
A waft of hair
From loved eyes.

The piano shivers,
When he touches it,
And the leg shines.

ANNE KNISH
_Opus 181_

SKEPTICAL cat,
Calm your eyes, and come to me.
For long ago, in some palmed forest,
I too felt claws curling
Within my fingers . . .
Moons wax and wane;
My eyes, too, once narrowed and widened
Why do you shrink back?
Come to me: let me pat you--
Come, vast-eyed one . . .
Or I will spring upon you
And with steel-hook fingers
Tear you limb from limb. . . .

There were twins in my cradle. . . .

EMANUEL MORGAN
_Opus 78_

I AM beset by liking so many people.
What can I do but hide my face away?--
Lest, looking up in love, I see no eyes or lids
In the gleaming whirl of day,
Lest, reaching for the fingers of love,
I know not which are they,
Lest the dear-lipped multitude,
Kissing me, choke me dead!--

O green eyes in the breakers,
White heave unquieted,
What can I do but dive again, again--again--
To hide my head!

ANNE KNISH
_Opus 135_

IN a tomb of Argolis,
Under an arch of great stones,
Where my eyes were sightless, groping,
I touched this figment of clay.

Forgotten vase of immemorial Greece,
Colorless form!
I have entered to the blind dark
Of the tomb where you have slept forever
And with the dreams of my importunate hands
I touch you in the profound darkness.

You are cold and estranged;
Yet the ends of my fingers cling to your porous surface.
You are thin and very tall;
My palm can cover your mouth.
Your lip curves but a little;
Around your throat
My two hands meet,
And then part as I follow the swelling
Rhythm that downward widens,
And I pass around and under,
And the returning