The Sonnetarium

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BODY PART 

(Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem, "Body Part.")

 

I offer you the same old gift again:

This ancient shriveled organ of my flesh

That we have used since who remembers when?

 

It’s shoddy now, but it was strong and fresh

When we were young. You held it in your hand

And felt its pulse when we had seed to thresh.

 

It throbbed for you and needed no command

To flame and ache when it was called upon

To do its duty, dilate and expand

 

To fill the evening or the breaking dawn,

The morn or afternoon with the lover’s art…,

So many years have passed now and have gone

 

To seed, so many organs have come apart --

Still, I offer you this same old heart.

 

By Lewis Turco

 

From The Sonnetarium, by Lewis Turco, New York: Bordighera Press (www.BordigheraPress.org ), VIA Folios 130, 2018. ISBN 978-1-59954-126-6, trade paperback. Available from any bookseller, on-line or off.