Calamus 22 Passing stranger!
An absolutely smoldering poem of unfulfilled desire from a casual encounter. It is delicious for its clear and direct explication of a very complicated emotion. The hottest line:
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass
The poem manages to capture three things in just ten lines.
Whitman is generously pan-gender but the text still feels queer-coded to me. Specifically in how the desire is kept secret: "I am not to speak to you... I am to wait". Combined with the street-cruising scenario (a theme in previous poems) and I can definitely relate to my gay experience.