it was rash and left chaos in its wake

That was the way 

I knew to know them— 

boys and men—taking

that vulnerable root into my body,

the way a toddler puts everything—

pebbles, keys, plastic cars—

into its mouth. Like a gardener

planting bulbs in the tulip craze, curious

to see each hybrid blossom, I slipped them 

in one after the other.

I wanted to learn

about love's transformation,

to gild my skin where

I rubbed up against it.

I loved their eyes

like the earth flecked with mica

and in their depths, a fortune

of raw diamonds. Though it was rash

and left chaos in its wake,

I clung to the only science I knew.

Crude as it was I crouched

in the cold night,

stubbornly knocking rock against 

rock, bent on that spark.

 

[Ellen Bass {1947- } 'Discovering Fire', from Human Line]