Will

It has to find something unyielding enough to push against.

A woman or a wall, anything made terse with interior refusal

is will's meat, who, likeably uninvolved at cocktail parties,

cries, when the gin's done, "I, monument of granite, walk on stone feet,

and the earth sinks sensibly beneath my power of conclusion."

Take only an eye: a pond, fringed with elaborate cresses,

rumors of kohl, billets-doux, soft acceptances mentioned.

Will turns away, wry as a bent-necked bird at the wrong water,

sips alkali instead, founds its own oasis where the gaze chafes,

in mica desert, cries, "I, of the oppositions, drink to fulfillment."