Crush by Mark Scott

"To have a crush on someone" --
that's a schoolgirl's phrase,
the lexicographers say.

But I have a generalist's temperament
(like Napoleon's)
any aunt or schoolgirl can daunt and tether.

and I have had crushes all my life,
once on my aunt, my uncle's wife,
sometimes for many days together.

Crush,
ecrasez
crescit sub pondere virtu:

What's so passing about it?
It's Byron's "Everything by turns
And nothing long,"

and you would have to have
Frank O'Hara's mental life
in Georg Simmel's metrolpolis

not to be ground up in its mills.
How pervious and flappable
can you afford to be?

"Marble does not laugh," said Diderot --
yes, but even marble twitches
intermittently.

From Tactile Values