“When The Body Electric Sang to Us: A Conversation with Whitman” by Victoria Walls
I
Some have sung The Body Electric, but I contend She sang to me
with a voice ravenous and full of light,
in the hush of thighs — and she yoked the body and the soul.
II
Sweet momentary glimpses from him to her,
the bulges who compliment in their contrast; we are clandestine meetings of flesh.
I hear The Body Electric; Moist whistles in the night —
the ripping and tearing of blouses and frayed jeans.
III
Our faces touched from a distance — how bizarre it is that eyes can see
through synapses of time, and space
is but the moment before the embrace.
She was a wonder I wished to wander — and so I wandered The Body Electric.
IV
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough --
But, I can’t say it is; curiosity is the caller,
and we must answer the call of the body.
V
Male is a mystic thing: So wreathed with beard and sex,
and vexed by fleeting moments in bed. I fell weak
to the rich thick fluids
VI
that swam in him and rendered us a poignant interlock
of body and God — the bodies of men who heave, and
breaths too afraid to leave — like flailing goodbyes
gone in hours, in seconds, in breaths.
VII
In sex, we are one body. In streets, we are strangers;
we are ships passing in the night, strung with rosewater and sweet winds,
and those sweet winds are the breaths of the coming morning.
VIII
Men and women calloused with last night’s adventures.
IX
Someone sang The Body Electric,
but now She sings to us.
I
Some have sung The Body Electric, but I contend She sang to me
with a voice ravenous and full of light,
in the hush of thighs — and she yoked the body and the soul.
II
Sweet momentary glimpses from him to her,
the bulges who compliment in their contrast; we are clandestine meetings of flesh.
I hear The Body Electric; Moist whistles in the night —
the ripping and tearing of blouses and frayed jeans.
III
Our faces touched from a distance — how bizarre it is that eyes can see
through synapses of time, and space
is but the moment before the embrace.
She was a wonder I wished to wander — and so I wandered The Body Electric.
IV
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough --
But, I can’t say it is; curiosity is the caller,
and we must answer the call of the body.
V
Male is a mystic thing: So wreathed with beard and sex,
and vexed by fleeting moments in bed. I fell weak
to the rich thick fluids
VI
that swam in him and rendered us a poignant interlock
of body and God — the bodies of men who heave, and
breaths too afraid to leave — like flailing goodbyes
gone in hours, in seconds, in breaths.
VII
In sex, we are one body. In streets, we are strangers;
we are ships passing in the night, strung with rosewater and sweet winds,
and those sweet winds are the breaths of the coming morning.
VIII
Men and women calloused with last night’s adventures.
IX
Someone sang The Body Electric,
but now She sings to us.