AN ASPHODEL
　

O dear sweet rosy
unattainable desire
. . .how sad, no way
to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
visible reality. . .
and skin's appalling
petals--how inspired
to be so Iying in the living
room drunk naked
and dreaming, in the absence
of electricity . . .
over and over eating the low root
of the asphodel,
gray fate . . .
rolling in generation
on the flowery couch
as on a bank in Arden--
my only rose tonite's the treat
of my own nudity.
　
Fall, 1953