common ground
i root thru sex in darkness as a mole
avoids the surface of the earth, where eye
must squint and ear be cocked for danger: hole
is safety, earth is warmth, and worm is my
companion as i grub with nose and claw
for sustenance, snuffling, wordless, unthinking
save in backbrain, shunning who would draw
me up to daylight, struggling and blinking.
where sunlight reaches is no home for me.
i want the depths, where heat provides a glow
that doesn't hurt my eyes, by which i see
where i had long forgotten i could go:
a meeting place where tunnels intersect,
a common ground where you and i connect.
--
Sometime around 1980, I think -- it was published in Ian Young's anthology Son of the Male Muse by the Crossing Press in 1982.