Dolce Ossessione
Will no one watch me? Look!, I'll dance on thread Or hold my breath for cameras till I burst. Step close, please; see, I'll pick your pockets first And shine—like truth?, like lies?—and then drop dead. Pathfinder, poacher, voodoo god, and quack: My names, unending as an almanac, Spin round me like a madman's spelling-bee. I am the prodigal who won't come back;
Phobic of wheels, I'll hide beneath the sea.
The sea! What beast existences I'll choose! At first I'll curl in wombs of shells and doze For years and years in tepid, crooning dark. I'll urge Obsession on: an eel, I'll swim To every far Sargasso of my whim. When I hear bathers laugh, I'll be a shark.
A flame-scaled trout, I'll shimmer through your nets— Like lies?, like truth?—and gasp on fatal sands. Trailed fawning by lascivious lean-ribbed cats, What child will scoop me up, what pudgy hands?