On a Line of My Wife's and Some Others Borrowed from George Oppen

“Why, you’re just a boy with white hair!” 

Which made me think of that other 

White-haired “boy” writing

A poem about a friend visiting 

The rooms of Keats and Shelley, 

Who saw “they were just 

Boys’ rooms” and was moved 

By that.  

 .

And indeed for the poet, 

A poet’s room is a boy’s room 

And he supposes women know it— 

Perhaps the unbeautiful banker 

Is exciting to a woman, a man 

Not a boy gasping 

For breath over a girl’s body.

. 

Perhaps 

That is what remains breathless, beautiful 

In this in which 

Some people never know.