PASSING stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking,
(It comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recalled as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me,
were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you
— your body has become not yours only,
nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass
— you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you
— I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake a night alone,
I am to wait — I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

-Walt Whitman, Calamus Poem Twenty-two, Leaves of Grass