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Esther 3:5-11
Elders
Ein Dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe
As a boy he was awkward, pimpled,
unpopular,
Disdained by girls, avoided by other boys,
An acned solitary. But bold and spectacular
The lubricious dreams that such a one enjoys.
He wandered apart, picked
at his scabs, pinned down,
In the plush, delirious Minsky’s of
his mind,
High-breasted, long-thighed sirens who served
his own
Terrible lusts, to which they became resigned,
And he thought himself masterful
and accursed
As he pumped his flesh to climax, picturing
wild
Virgins imploring him to do his worst,
And every morning he left his bedding soiled.
And so it went year by tormented
year,
His yearnings snarled in some tight, muddled
sensation
Of violence, a gout of imperiousness, fear
And resentment yeasting in ulcered incubation.
When he was old he encountered
someone else
Enslaved by similar dreams and forbidden
seethings,
Another dissatisfied, thrummed by the same
pulse,
Who brought him where they both could observe
bathing
In innocent calm voluptous
Susanna,
Delicate, and a quarter of his age,
Her flesh as white and wonderful as manna,
Exciting them both to desires engorged with
rage.
- Anthony Hecht
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