written October 15th, 2004
The idea of her
(simply thinking: not seeing)
is a thought in general:
the archetype of all I am
and believe
and dream.
She as specific is as a glass
darkly beaming
(and I the Sultán of Mirrors)
what I think she is.
Any She would do, I suppose,
were she content not to
(merely)
be,
but to be what I
(foolish and deluded)
believe her to be.
But shouldn’t every woman do that anyway?
I was looking through one of my old notebooks yesterday and ran across the above piece. It was written in the fall of 2004, and somehow escaped my notice until now. (In fact, until I'd read it through, I had no recollection of it — and half thought that I'd copied it out of a book.)
It's mostly satire aimed at myself, so consider that before you start complaining about what a narrow-minded chauvanist I am.