Wandervoegel

by Susan Dunn
December 2000

Orpheus by Swan

It would be the worst time for him to die

This Wandervoegel, in the time of passage,

Taking his first steps out among the carnivores,

Tantalizing, with those lithesome glistening thighs.

He thinks they’re only playing,

When he encounters the leopard and the vine.

His lanky legs, not boy, but not yet man,

Straddle precariously two worlds

But his face is turned outward

His mouth watering at the thought of his bite at the apple

At the thought of the world his oyster

But who the eater, who the eaten, speak.

It would be the worst time for him to die,

For he would be between

No longer a child, but not yet an adult,

No longer foolish, but not yet wise,

No longer yours, but not yet his own.

And you would have loved him to the full aching extent of child

But not yet as man.

It would be the worst time for him to die, the worst,

For you would have known him all his life,

And the world would have missed knowing him at all.