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- A woman
- who loves a woman
- is forever young.
- The mentor
- and the student
- feed off each other.
- Many a girl
- had an old aunt
- who locked her in the study
- to keep the boys away.
- They would play rummy
- or lie on the couch
- and touch and touch.
- Old breast against young breast…
- Let your dress fall down your shoulder,
- come touch a copy of you
- for I am at the mercy of rain,
- for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti
- for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor
- and the church spires have turned to stumps.
- The sea bangs into my cloister
- for the politicians are dying,
- and dying so hold me, my young dear,
- hold me…
- The yellow rose will turn to cinder
- and New York City will fall in
- before we are done so hold me,
- my young dear, hold me.
- Put your pale arms around my neck.
- Let me hold your heart like a flower
- lest it bloom and collapse.
- Give me your skin
- as sheer as a cobweb,
- let me open it up
- and listen in and scoop out the dark.
- Give me your nether lips
- all puffy with their art
- and I will give you angel fire in return.
- We are two clouds
- glistening in the bottle glass.
- We are two birds
- washing in the same mirror.
- We were fair game
- but we have kept out of the cesspool.
- We are strong.
- We are the good ones.
- Do not discover us
- for we lie together all in green
- like pond weeds.
- Hold me, my young dear, hold me.
- They touch their delicate watches
- one at a time.
- They dance to the lute
- two at a time.
- They are as tender as bog moss.
- They play mother-me-do
- all day.
- A woman
- who loves a woman
- is forever young.
- Once there was a witch's garden
- more beautiful than Eve's
- with carrots growing like little fish,
- with many tomatoes rich as frogs,
- onions as ingrown as hearts,
- the squash singing like a dolphin
- and one patch given over wholly to magic -
- rampion, a kind of salad root
- a kind of harebell more potent than penicillin,
- growing leaf by leaf, skin by skin.
- as rapt and as fluid as Isadoran Duncan.
- However the witch's garden was kept locked
- and each day a woman who was with child
- looked upon the rampion wildly,
- fancying that she would die
- if she could not have it.
- Her husband feared for her welfare
- and thus climbed into the garden
- to fetch the life-giving tubers.
- Ah ha, cried the witch,
- whose proper name was Mother Gothel,
- you are a thief and now you will die.
- However they made a trade,
- typical enough in those times.
- He promised his child to Mother Gothel
- so of course when it was born
- she took the child away with her.
- She gave the child the name Rapunzel,
- another name for the life-giving rampion.
- Because Rapunzel was a beautiful girl
- Mother Gothel treasured her beyond all things.
- As she grew older Mother Gothel thought:
- None but I will ever see her or touch her.
- She locked her in a tow without a door
- or a staircase. It had only a high window.
- When the witch wanted to enter she cried'
- Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.
- Rapunzel's hair fell to the ground like a rainbow.
- It was as strong as a dandelion
- and as strong as a dog leash.
- Hand over hand she shinnied up
- the hair like a sailor
- and there in the stone-cold room,
- as cold as a museum,
- Mother Gothel cried:
- Hold me, my young dear, hold me,
- and thus they played mother-me-do.
- Years later a prince came by
- and heard Rapunzel singing her loneliness.
- That song pierced his heart like a valentine
- but he could find no way to get to her.
- Like a chameleon he hid himself among the trees
- and watched the witch ascend the swinging hair.
- The next day he himself called out:
- Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,
- and thus they met and he declared his love.
- What is this beast, she thought,
- with muscles on his arms
- like a bag of snakes?
- What is this moss on his legs?
- What prickly plant grows on his cheeks?
- What is this voice as deep as a dog?
- Yet he dazzled her with his answers.
- Yet he dazzled her with his dancing stick.
- They lay together upon the yellowy threads,
- swimming through them
- like minnows through kelp
- and they sang out benedictions like the Pope.
- Each day he brought her a skein of silk
- to fashion a ladder so they could both escape.
- But Mother Gothel discovered the plot
- and cut off Rapunzel's hair to her ears
- and took her into the forest to repent.
- When the prince came the witch fastened
- the hair to a hook and let it down.
- When he saw Rapunzel had been banished
- he flung himself out of the tower, a side of beef.
- He was blinded by thorns that prickled him like tacks.
- As blind as Oedipus he wandered for years
- until he heard a song that pierced his heart
- like that long-ago valentine.
- As he kissed Rapunzel her tears fell on his eyes
- and in the manner of such cure-alls
- his sight was suddenly restored.
- They lived happily as you might expect
- proving that mother-me-do
- can be outgrown,
- just as the fish on Friday,
- just as a tricycle.
- The world, some say,
- is made up of couples.
- A rose must have a stem.
- As for Mother Gothel,
- her heart shrank to the size of a pin,
- never again to say: Hold me, my young dear,
- hold me,
- and only as she dreamed of the yellow hair
- did moonlight sift into her mouth.
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