Your very flesh shall be a great poem... - Walt Whitman

The Last Invocation

At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks — from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks — with a whisper,
Set ope the doors, O Soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love.)

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Passing stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you — your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass — you take of my back, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you — I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait — I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.