Sultry

To those who can see them, there are eyes,Leopard eyes of marigolds crouching above red earth,Bulging eyes of fruits and rubies in the heavily-hanging trees,Broken eyes of queasy cupids staring from the gloomof myrtles.I came here for solitudeAnd I am plucked at by a host of eyes.

A peacock spreads his tail on the balustradeAnd every eye is a mood of green malice,A challenge and a fear.A hornet flashes above geraniums,Spying upon me in a trick of cunning.And Hermes,Hermes the implacable,Points at me with a fractured arm.

Vengeful god of smooth, imperishable loveliness,You are more savage than the goat-legged Pan,Than the crocodile of carven yew-wood.Fisherman of men's eyes,You catch them on a three-pronged spear:Your youth, your manhood,The reticence of your everlasting revelation.I too am become a cunning eyeSeeking you past your time-gnawed surface,Seeking you back to hyacinths upon a dropping hill,Where legend drowses in a glaze of sea.

Yours are the eyes of a bull and a panther,For all that they are chiselled out and the sockets empty.You—perfectly imperfect,Clothed in a garden,In innumerable gardens,Borrowing the eyes of fruits and flowers—And mine also, cold, impossible god,So that I stare back at myselfAnd see myself with loathing.

A quince-tree flings a crooked shadow—My shadow, tortured out of semblance,Bewildered in quince boughs.His shadow is clear as a scissored silhouette.Heat twinkles and the eyes glare.And I, of the mingled shadow,I glareAnd see nothing.