THE STRANGE FLOWER
(from Brian Wood’s drawing)
Plump taut-nippled
breast, slim penis
and a flower rising up
like a skullcap
on a rabbi with no
body but a line,
a curving line
and a line is all
a being needs
to go on being,
to follow fast
between the sexes
and reach that chapel
where no Grail is stored
but where the lepers gather
to worship a god
whose mercy is not evident,
but our rabbi bends
to tend their sores
and weeps his own
doubts away.
*
A line suffices,
is skillful
as no body could
answer every question
with kindly, meek
simplicity.
Robert Kelly