Rebel Prince

Well, tonight it’s back to the east coast for me. My winter vacation continues, though, since I don’t have to go back to work until next Monday. Rock on. Aside: one of my aunts, who currently lives with my parents, will be going to the Philippines for a month; she leaves tonight as well. I picked my flight to coincide with hers, so we’ll all be at the airport together, one big happy family… well, with two of us flying off in opposite directions. Hm, since her flight leaves a bit before mine, this gives me another chance to check out the international terminal at SFO, which was renovated fairly recently. I like it, very Euro-sleek compared to the domestic area, some of which resembles an tired office building.

Anyway, I’ll recap my California adventures when I get settled tomorrow. If I’m awake and coherent. Didn’t I swear to not take a redeye ever again?

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Last week as I was skimming through my newly acquired Norton poetry anthology, I came across some poems by Thom Gunn (b. 1929). I was reminded of the first poem of his I ever read, “The Hug,” which I found a while back in an anthology called Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems, from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series. An exquisite piece, I think. Quiet and controlled—with a complex rhyme scheme, even—but still sensual and full of warmth:

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
  Half of the night with our old friend
    Who’d showed us in the end
  To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
    Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
    Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
    Your instep to my heel,
  My shoulder-blades against your chest.
  It was not sex, but I could feel
  The whole strength of your body set,
      Or braced, to mine,
    And locking me to you
  As if we were still twenty-two
  When our grand passion had not yet
    Become familial.
  My quick sleep had deleted all
  Of intervening time and place.
    I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

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