A German boy, Mattias --

freshly minted from Berlin –
here in New York City for three days –
just stopped me in the street
as if he’d bloomed out from

the humid June of Greenwich Village –
walked me back to my apartment –
was so full of questions about
east and west and north and south;

and left me so arrested by
his gentle youth, soft mouth, brown
tousled hair and burnt sienna eyes
alive with aching interest – one

forbade oneself from anything
untoward: the boy was forward
but so free of artifice one chose
abeyance over the conveyance

of one’s not-so-gentle lust –
and its inevitable drain. Sometimes
the best that one can do
with beauty is to bless it, and refrain.


.