Still Water
Prose Poems
Copyright @ 1989 by Arthur Garfunkel
ISBN 0-525-24795-5
Used by persmission of Author - All Rights Reserved
47
Work in D.C.
is through.
Back home in Central Park,
I accidentally intersect
The alternating current
Of a stranger's point of view
And of the young man viewed.
He lies, wooed, in the grass,
His ass to the sun,
With only a bathing suit on.
He lets the rude intrusion of
The stranger's line of sight
Pass between his
Slightly parted knees.
Then, to tease the peeker,
He lifts his ass a millimeter,
Pleased to play the street cat
And be peeked at.
I see the charge go through his spine,
His eyes glued to beyond where mine can see.
What is he watching, this tom alert—
The art of atoms—a hope, a screen?
A conduit in the line of lewd electrons,
The love of seeing and of being seen.
I, the interloper, daring not
To intervene or be deterrent,
Or even attract the vector's splendor,
Prudently cross the current.
New York CityJune 1985