Bodhisattva
The new news is I love you my nudist
the new news is I love you my buddhist
my naked body and budding pleasure
in the weather of your presence
Not whether your presence but how
Oh love a new nodule of neurosis
a posy of new roses proposing
a new era for us nobis pacem
Oh my bodhisattva of new roses
you’ve saved me from my no-love neurosis
You’ve saved my old body from the fatwa
Let’s lie down in a bed of roses
a pocketful that rings round the rosy
If this is the end of the world my love
let’s fall down in bed and die
Let’s give a new nod to nothing
Let’s give a rosebud to nothing at all
How I love the new roses of nothing
Oh my bodhisattva of nothing
boding I hope no news but this
For our bodies and souls I hope nothing
but the weather of us in our peace
Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Arvio. Used with permission of the author.
“When the bodhisattva showed up in this poem, I’m not sure I knew he was on the way to enlightenment (bodhi meaning enlightenment—not body!—and sattva meaning body.) Isn’t this what we long for in love, an evolution toward amorous enlightenment? We want our no-love neurosis to turn into new roses.”
—Sarah Arvio