Making Love to
Lovely Lila
(Both of Us
Aged 78 or so)

Last night Lila stroked me until I exploded in her hand, in one of her knuckle-busted hands.
An hour before she had used capsaicin to ease my noisy arthritic joints
But Rosa, I mean Lila, my much beloved caresser,
My seducer, my pain manager
And stroker (and stoker)
(We share our Social Security checks),
Forgot to wash her fucking palms so
As Casanova reported after one of his trysts with the DuPlexius Twins
(Notable beautiful virgin ladies-in-waiting in Rheims):
"The pleasure was equal to the pain."
Or almost.

The very atoms in our bodies are whistling about
And they say that the stars (above or around)
Are at this moment singing to us in D or D-minor;
The comets, I am told,
Murmur in far galactic space
In voices you and I cannot hear (yet);
There is a low and rhythmic, persistent humming
That has most probably been there
Since the very beginning
Of this very universe.

---

For some reason I can't leave myself alone.
I have many years but cannot leave myself alone:
Alone with Lila, (or Rosa, or Felice);
Alone with myself,
Alone with the noisy stars.
There is something inside of me that wants out.
And I am not so sure how to let it be gone.

There must be a reason why I want out of here.
Is it my reading the details of the Siege of Stalingrad
(They ate the dogs, some say each other);
Or is it the bodies piled up at Gettysburg
(Amidst the flowers they called "ladies eardrops");
Perhaps it is the ovens at Birkenau,
Those dry ovens at Birkenau;
The snow outside; the stink of them...
I must stop thinking on these things
Before I go dotty, no?

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" asked Leibniz.
Why indeed?
Why am I here next to you my sweet Lila?
Even though you have decided, sweet Lila,
For reasons of your own
That I must lay off, Lila
For tonight you say, "Lay off, will you?"
Ah, mine shiksa Lila.
What planet are you from, Lila?

---

I'm told that one of my mothers
Spent her nights wandering the rooms
Of our moonside mountain mansion
(Stepping on pale fires, the moonshades)
Weeping moontears to herself
(A fingernail of the moon must have been growing
Over the nearby Caspian Sea
As I was growing inside).
She must have been, like me,
Wondering why she was sent here,
Why the rooms were so empty
Save for the sounds of the green-black sea.

My mother who once thought herself
A lady of delicacy
Had taken to killing herself
Over time,
Knowing that over time
She would be permitted to kill herself again (and again).

They say that the stars are forever singing to us.

For some reason I can't leave myself alone.

--- ©1966 Isaac Wrangel