for Cass
he touched me so I live to know
how utterly indifferent they were in Sparta
of an unremitting pleasure
“I give them three weeks here,”
that’s one point of view: without a doubt
that it will come again,
our parallel delirium,
a new world that was Greek and great
“—kind of foolish,”
and now I’m different from before
“he don’t look smart,”
to the mirage we carry on
“she’s got a nose of her own,”
on to my dreamed-of paradise
as if I breathed superior air,
as no other has been illustrious
it was a boundless place to me.
** a cento composed of lines from “Lover’s Wine” by Charles Baudelaire, “In 200 B.C.” by C.P. Cavafy, love poem LII by Emily Dickinson, and “The Displaced Person” by Flannery O’Connor.**
This poem was included in my book "I want you to feel ugly, too," which can be read on issuu.
About the Creator
Joe Nasta
Hi! I'm a queer multimodal artist writing love poems in Seattle, one half of the art and poetry collective Eat Yr Manhood, and head curator of Stone Pacific Zine. Work in The Rumpus, Occulum, Peach Mag, dream boy book club, and others. :P
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