My mother says the sound haunted her.
She thought an animal had crawled under her bed
and that it was hurt. Every night for a week,
the whimpering woke her. Mornings, she reached the long hand
of the broom underneath the dust ruffle but it came out clean.
The pillow where her head had rested was wet. So wet, she said.
As if I’d been crying all night long. But then it stopped.
The animal, wherever it was, had nursed itself well. Or died.
It would be years before we found anything resembling a body.

Go her way, her quiet, quiet way,
Her way is best for one so wistful-tired.
My three-months’ lover, go with your
            world-sick heart,
Your love-bruised flesh. I am no sanctuary.

This hot mouth, these ardent, out-reaching arms,
This hollow between my breasts, these
            hungry limbs,
They are a cradle, a cradle of living flame;
No haven for you, saddening after peace.

I am not certain, no, nor soothing-safe.
Mine is the shifting, perilous way of life.
Pitiless, ever-changing, hazardous,
My love insatiate and mutable.

Go her way, her quiet, well-path’d way,
Sit by her hearth-fire; let her keep you safe.
Mine the unharbored heart, the uncharted
            passions;
Mine, at the end a more than common peace.

I shall not harm you at all nor ask you
        for anything,
You need have no fear;
I am only very tired and would like to
        rest awhile
With my head here
And play with the long strands of your
        loosed hair,
Or touch your skin,
Feel your cool breath on my eyes,
        watch it stir
Those rising hills where your breasts begin;
And listen to your voice whispering
        tender words
Until, perhaps, I fall asleep;
Or feel you kiss my forehead to comfort me
        a little
If I should weep.
That is all, just to lie so beside you
Till dawn's lamp is lit.
You need not fear me. I have given
        too much of love
Ever to ask for it.

Because I am a boy, the untouchability of beauty
is my subject already, the book of statues
open in my lap, the middle of October, leaves
foiling the wet ground
in soft copper. “A statue
must be beautiful
from all sides,” Cellini wrote in 1558.
When I close the book,
the bodies touch. In the west,
they are tying a boy to a fence and leaving him to die,
his face unrecognizable behind a mask
of blood. His body, icon
of loss, growing meaningful
against his will.