Seven Poems

from The Old Age of Michelangelo (1954)
… For you must know I am of all men ever born
Most inclined to love persons, and whenever I see someone
Who has gifts of mind and body, and can say or show me
something

Better than the rest,
Straightway I am compelled
To fall in love with him, and then I give myself
Up to him so completely, I belong no longer to myself,
He wresting from me
So great part of my being, I am utterly
Bewildered and distraught, and for many days know nothing
Of what I am doing or where I am…

                              *

-I am always alone, I speak to no one
But that shabby Bernardo, nor do I wish to:
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