Then you’ll kiss long-legged boys and feel the pain

of mermaids afraid of the waves they’ve swum…

their busy busy busy bodies sucking,

sharing saliva and vomiting in sweet frenzy,

I could have told you why Socrates wasn’t afraid to die;

that for him death was either a single night of dreamless sleep,

or else a chance to walk and talk with the dead,

came home beneath a moon whose face grinned pink as the giant’s 

sniffing and waiting for me at the top of a bean-stalk.