A White Oriental Flower - Momus

The life of someone promiscuous is unfocused, unclear

Forgetting the crisp morning sun

On the face of the young beloved

The lines of her eyebrows so sharply defined

Loving anyone else so far from his mind

She is not unique, but seems so then

But after five, but after ten

When morning’s gone and won’t come back again

Then carpe diem

One morning I crept into your room, Young Kim

And watched you sleep for an hour

Your face a white oriental flower

So vast and soft next to mine

Your body, which didn’t belong to me Still not quite ready for rousing, moved lazily in rehearsal

While mine trembled violently in the sublime suspended animation

Of my unresolved arousal

That hour took me back to something so pure

That hour was, for me, transcendental

To long and yet never possess

Is, as Rilke said better

The best