Partnered Undercurrents

When Audre Lorde wrote of Eros,

Our sense of self and the chaos

Of our strongest feelings, she summed

With poetry’s efficiency

And slippery polysemy

The fundamental arena

Of human being, not only

Erotic, but epistemic,

The heart of the situation—

The human sense of self, of soul,

Of self-reflective awareness,

Of being individual,

Which isn’t individual

In source at all, but from outside,

Borne on the pollen of language

And cultural inheritance,

Versus the human animal,

Host and sustainer of culture,

A more ancient inheritance,

Conveying our senses of self

In its waves as the deep ocean

Holds nocturnal phosphorescence—

No ocean, no phosphorescence,

Yet different wishes lurk in each.