The new news is I love you my Nudist
the new news is I love you my Buddhist

my naked body and budding pleasure
in the weather of your presence

not whether your presence but how
oh love a new nodule of neurosis

a posy of new roses proposing
a new era for us nobis pacem

Oh my Bodhisattva of new roses
you've saved me from my no-love neurosis

you've saved my old body from the fatwa
Let's lie down in a bed of roses

a pocketful that rings round the rosy
If this is the end of the world my love

let's fall down in bed and die
let's give a new nod to nothing

let's give a rosebud to nothing at all
How I love the new roses of nothing

oh my Bodhisattva of nothing
boding I hope no news but this

for our bodies and souls I hope nothing
but the weather of us in our peace



About this poem
"When the bodhisattva showed up in this poem, I'm not sure I knew he was on the way to enlightenment ('bodhi' meaning 'enlightenment'-not body-and 'sattva' meaning 'body'). Isn't this what we long for in love, an evolution toward amorous enlightenment? We want our no-love neurosis to turn into new roses."
-Sarah Arvio

About Sarah Arvio
Sarah Arvio is the author of "night thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014). She is a translator for the United Nations in Switzerland and lives in Maryland by the Chesapeake Bay.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.

(c) 2014 Sarah Arvio. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate