Harmless Poem

by Stuart Dischell

Forgive the web without its spider

The houseplant with few or many flowers

And the stars for hiding in the daytime,

Forgive astronauts for distance

And surgeons for proximity,

Forgive the heart for the way it looks

Like something a dog eats from a pan,

Forgive goat-gods and wine-gods

And the goddess bathing in her pond,

Forgive the sea for being moody,

The air for its turbulence, the stomach

For its vomit, forgive the insistence

Of sperm, the greeting of the ovum,

Forgive orgasms for their intensity

And the faces they make in people's faces,

Forgive the music of liars, forgive autumn

And winter and the departure of lovers.

And the young dead and the persistence

Of the old, forgive the last tooth and hair.