POEM
Uneasy Rider
Falling in love with a mustache
is like saying
you can fall in love with
the way a man polishes his shoes
which,
of course,
is one of the things that turns on
my tuned-up engine
those trim buckled boots
(I feel like an advertisement
for men’s fashions
when I think of your ankles)
Yeats was hung up with a girl’s beautiful face
and I find myself
a bad moralist,
a failing aesthetician,
a sad poet,
wanting to touch your arms and feel the muscles
that make a man’s body have so much substance,
that makes a woman
lean and yearn in that direction
that makes her melt/ she is a rainy day
in your presence
the pool of wax under a burning candle
the foam from a waterfall
You are more beautiful than any Harley-Davidson
She is the rain,
waits in it for you,
finds blood spotting her legs
from the long ride.
Diane Wakoski, “Uneasy Rider” from The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971). Copyright © 1971 by Diane Wakoski. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Source: The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems (1971)
Diane Wakoski, described as an "important and moving poet" by Paul Zweig in the New York Times . . . MORE »
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