American Boy by Thom Gunn

American Boy

I do not seek you out

For if I do

You say I might get tired of you.

To think I was afraid

You’d be the one to tire while we both still

Warm to the naked thrill

Precisely of that strangeness that has made

For such self-doubt.

I hated those old men

With turkey-necks

And undiminished love of sex,

The curtains of their skin

Tripping them up at their incautious play,

When out of torpor they

Had woken as ambitious as if in

Their prime again.

Now I myself am old

We calculate

Our games for such and such a date.

Like bicoastal romance,

In which one night a quarter is the most

Spared to the other coast,

Ours thrives as we stretch out our ignorance:

Men of the world.

Affectionate young man,

Your wisdom feeds

My dried-up impulses, my needs,

With energy and juice.

Expertly you know how to maintain me

At the exact degree

Of hunger without starving. We produce

What warmth we can.