Beauty Of The Breech Poem by gershon hepner

Like an oriental girl's behind,
in syrup, peaches, slice by slice,
essence of their womankind,
slippery, entice.

Dare I eat another peach?
Should I make a pass?
Oh the beauty of the breech,
sweet, submissive ass!


Caleb Crain writes about the English novelist Denton Welch, whose two later novels 'In Youth Is Pleasure' and 'A Voice Through a Cloud' are being reissued by a Exact Change ('It's Pretty, but Is It Broken? ' the NYT Book Review, June 20,1999) . Orvil Pym, the hero of novels 'In Youth Is Pleasure, ' imagines that the yellow fruit of his pêche Melba is 'a celluloid cupid doll's behind'.

I will cite below the end of T.S. Eliot’s “LOvesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1917) :

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

6/20/99