beat poem

late last night I saw you at a 
grocery store; nosing around the kumquats,
feeling out fresh-tipped asparagus
with which to feed a starving lover

	nor Whitman, nor Ginsberg
could look you in the eye

well, another night has not passed
since I sensed your form
, hidden away among bananas
and apples yellower than the streak
on your coward’s back, much wider
than the legs I’d spread for you.
you know I’m much more alike
	to Icarus
than probably you cared; 
flew too close to your sun

what I’d do if you knew
that nestled restless beneath
leaves of iceberg, romaine,
I watched your innocent perusal
through fresh cheese, soy
, bread you bought for her with
your brown eyes, your hands;
through the aisles you looked as
Kerouac, your mind and your
body roamed with poetry; but
the way your hair falls, quietly,
my gaze and the harshcoldlight
stole away your disguise

	and like the serpent, I
hope you eat the fruit; waiting
	, wanting
, the pleasure of one fragile bite; 
yet words you unsaid taught me
caution towards those things that 
pass between my own jaded teeth,
my wide-open and careless lips

© Sayard Gilmour