The men you've loved are one man.
The women I've known are one woman.
I hold your hand, and look into your face with love and peace.
We will lie down together and nothing matter,
but making each of us the first and the last.
We look at each other silently.
We are prepared to lose one another
to boredom, or to events that will offer
their own kinds of inducements.
And we hate ourselves for it.
We cannot hate each other.
We have given and received so much pleasure,
but we may doubt it as an absolute.
But then our arms embrace that much more closely,
in secret aware of pleasure that exists elsewhere for us.
And again, we are stirred to lie down together.
To affirm love and principle, and the pleasure
is impersonal yet stronger for that.
Once more we look at each other.
This time wisely.
We have had an experience greater than ourselves,
as we embrace again.