Leda and the Swan

Is it rape?
Our instincts insist it must be
The law would probably agree
Copulation between a god
And a human is not sex
Between equals
Yet she does not look as if
The ravaging is unwelcome
What kind of woman hungers
For such tiny equipment?
And his honking, avian voice
Cannot have seduced her
Could he have gently hissed his love or
Just opened his snowy wings?
Perhaps he simply stretched
His graceful neck up to look
Into her eyes and maybe
No one had looked at her
Like that for a very long time
We can all agree, I think,
Though, that she must have
Low self esteem, indeed, to
Be enjoying herself with such
Wanton abandon, her head
Tipped back to the sun
As the wings beat against
The insides of her thighs
With each thrust

20

He turns and squats for a microsecond
Leg muscles bunching and gathering
Then his body shoots forward through
The gap of crunching, grunting humanity.
At full speed, it looks like a dance
And he seems light, though he is not
But he is lithe and slick and low
Rolling and bouncing off obstacles
Like some kind of magic pinball that
Isn’t deflected but somehow rolls around
The pins and slips cleanly into the hole.
His image on the film still invokes a thrill
But he does not run for anyone anymore.
We once watched him every week, despite
The disappointment of his team and coach
Each year, Thanksgiving dinners balanced
On our laps, forgotten, as we watched.
It was worth the pain of seeing him lose
Just for the pleasure of seeing him run.
Those of us with alliances elsewhere
Rooted for him, a one-man team
One of the best we will ever see.
Everyone wanted him for their own
But none could have him. And honorable
He stayed despite his flawed, hateful match.
He kept silent all those years, though we knew
There must have been frustration and pain.
If only we could have plucked him out
Like one perfect grape among a stinking bunch
To set him gently among others worthy of
Him, he would have ripened properly.
Instead, before it could let him go, he
Pulled himself free and rolled away
From the revolting, dying vine.

Floating

He steps off the bank for the third time today

The rough fibers of the rope cut into his hands

Shaving off little circlets of skin below his fingers

He can barely feel the stinging, as the rope dips him

Low above the water, then the dropped-belly sensation

As he rises to his zenith where, for a breathtaking second

He floats, weightless in midair, just like Wile E. Coyote

When he’s run out past the edge of the cliff and finds

For one horrible, comic second that coyotes and little boys

Can levitate but not for long, and he knows the rope will

Change direction and send him back toward the bank or

Onto the rocks just below the surface of the river’s edge

When he lets go with both hands and legs and drops

Slick and slender and lovely, and although he doesn’t know it

He is the most beautiful boy in the world in that second

And if you told him the truth of this he would snort and hope

Nobody else had heard you say something so girly and dumb

But at his core, this floating boy will always be inside

The man he will become and everything in his life

That he finds to be important will resurrect in him

How he feels at the river this hot, gorgeous summer