Poem 136

Male body image seen through the lens of Joseph Merrick … his unaffected arm and hand were described as unusually fine and sensitive … I think every man feels this dichotomy, at once dapper engineer and diseased tram … 

( … a twist on Walt Whitman’s I sing the body electric …  )

The Elephant Man’s Dream

Sleeping propped breath loud
  in the twisted vents
he sees a woman quite clearly
stooping to his mushroom flesh
                                   her perfect body
smooth rounded
well
     she unfolds him
every last lip
 and pours not tears but kisses
hot sighs

he expands to fill himself
   the two heavy limbs
massive nodding head
                          sees himself
no longer the dapper engineer of a diseased tram
but the minotaur
                   sprawled open under her tongue
the brush of her breasts

      he sings the full fat wildly grown
      body
           the beautiful woman bends to him

he sings like an opera monster
well pleased with himself