Now when I visit Ellen’s body in my memory,
it is like visiting a cemetery. I look
at the chiseled, muscular belly
and at the perfect thirty-year-old breasts
and the fine blond purse of her pussy
and I kneel and weep a little there.
I am not the first person to locate god
in erectile tissue and the lubricating gland
but when I kiss her breast and feel
the tough button of her nipple
rise and stiffen to my tongue
like the dome of a small mosque
in an ancient, politically incorrect city,
I feel holy, I begin to understand religion.
I circle around to see the basilica
of her high Irish-American butt,
and I look at her demure little asshole
and am sorry I didn’t spend more time with it.
And her mouth and her eyes and white white teeth.
It’s beauty beauty beauty which in a way Ellen
herself the person distracted me from. It’s
beauty which has been redistributed now
by the justice of chance and the temporal economy.
Now I’m like a sad astronaut living
deep in space, breathing the oxygen of memory
out of a silver can. Now I’m like an angel
drifting over the surface of the earth,
brushing its meadows and forests
with the tips of my wings,
with wonder and regret and affection.
(2007)
RICHARD JONES (BORN 1953)
Wan Chu’s Wife in Bed
Wan Chu, my adoring husband,
has returned from another trip
selling trinkets in the provinces.
He pulls off his lavender shirt
as I lie naked in our bed,
waiting for him. He tells me
I am the only woman he’ll ever love.
He may wander from one side of China
to the other, but his heart
will always stay with me.
His face glows in the lamplight
with the sincerity of a boy
when I lower the satin sheet
to let him see my breasts.
Outside, it begins to rain
on the cherry trees
he planted with our son,
and when he enters me with a sigh,
the storm begins in earnest,
shaking our little house.
Afterwards, I stroke his back
until he falls asleep.
I’d love to stay awake all night
listening to the rain,
but I should sleep, too.
Tomorrow Wan Chu will be
a hundred miles away
and I will be awake all night
in the arms of Wang Chen,
the tailor from Ming Pao,
the tiny village down the river.
(1996)
HARRYETTE MULLEN (DATE OF BIRTH UNKNOWN)
Pretty Piece of Tail
Pretty piece of tail,
now I wanted you so bad.
Nice, pretty piece of tail
and I wanted it mighty bad.
I thought if I could get it,
that piece be the best I ever had.
She had her legs together
the way her mama said she should.
Yeah, she was keeping her legs together
just like her mama say she should.
The way she was holding on to it,
I knew it must be good.
I schemed and lied to get it,
told her I loved her best.
That’s right, I schemed and I lied to get it,
told the girl I loved her best.
I knew it was no better than the rest.
When I first saw you, baby,
I told you I’d love you until I die.
First time I saw you, looking so good now, baby,
said I’d love you till I die.
Well now I’ll tell you, if you didn’t know, darling,
a man’s just born to lie.
That’s the truth, I’ll testify.
If I was on the jury,
talking about courts and jail—
If I was on the jury
wouldn’t no man go to jail
just for trying out a pretty piece of tail.
(1982)
KIM ADDONIZIO (BORN 1954)
The Divorcée and Gin
I love the frosted pints you come in,
and the tall bottles with their uniformed men;
the bars where you’re poured chilled
into shallow glasses, the taste of drowned olives,
and the scrawled benches where I see you
passed impatiently from one mouth
to another, the bag twisted tight around
your neck, the hand that holds you
shaking a little from its need
which is the true source of desire; God, I love
what you do to me at night when we’re alone,
how you wait for me to take you into me
until I’m so confused with you I can’t
stand up anymore. I know you want me
helpless, each cell whimpering, and I give
you that, letting you have me just the way
you like it. And when you’re finished
you turn your face to the wall while I curl
around you again, and enter another morning
with aspirin and the useless ache
that comes from loving, too well,
those who, under the guise of pleasure,
destroy everything they touch.
(1995)
SARAH ARVIO (BORN 1954)
Mirrors
A while later that night they flurried in;
some were humming and laughing nervously.
“Have you assessed the deep indecency
most of you tend to feel at having sex
before the spread of a mirror? As though
another couple were in the room and
couldn’t help peering at your pleasure or
peeking in your eyes? Who wouldn’t flush red
at the sight of two bodies moving in
rhythm both with each other and with you?”
“But under that blush lies a deeper one—
the subliminal, sublunary sense
of being observed from another sphere.”
“Thus the preference for modest mirrors,
hung well above the scene and frame of love,
which enhance the room’s depth, yes, but offer
at best an oblique view to a watcher
at a higher vantage.” “And note that those
who get a thrill from curling and rolling
before mirrors are voyeurs or else want
to be seen by voyeurs, which amounts to
the same thing: a racy view of others’
raptures or lascivious exposure
of one’s own.” Now the rills of laughter lulled:
“Despite our pleasure at reacquaintance
with breasts, balls, and lips, it is considered
in cosmic bad taste to show too much sex
to the other side.” Is it (I was moved
to ask) nostalgic, tender, even raw
to look in later from a place apart?
Giving a low sigh, one spun and then spoke:
“The convocation of qualms and kisses,
the regrets, the assembly of regrets
for those not loved, for those not loved enough,
and for those who should never have been touched
—what else in this death could be more poignant?—
nothing being left of what might have been
but a half glance through a glaze of silver…”
And here one stopped. No,
one could not go on.
(2000)
DEAN YOUNG (BORN 1955)
Platypus
Your pink cowboy hat is my vagina.
I wouldn’t say that to just anyone.
When I see you in your buckeroo pj’s,
I want to watch your face contort
like bacon as it fries
while my penis splits you into a holy star.
An orgasm is a spaceship.
You wait for many many years
then you are mature enough to have a mouse.
You practice putting immense feeling
into the tiny pelt.
The rest of your life you explode.
(2007)
AMY GERSTLER (BORN 1956)
Ode to Semen
Whitish brine, spooners’ gruel,
mortality’s nectar, potent drool,
foam on oceans
where our ancestors first
bubbled up (that vast soup
we’ll one day
be stirred back into)….
O gluey sequel
to kisses and licks,
the loins’ shy outcry,
blurt of melted pearl
leaked into hungry mouths
or between splayed legs
in a dim, curtained room,
while far off, down the hall,
in the kitchen’s overlit,
crumb-littered domain,
ham is sliced,
potatoes are peeled,
and, emitting pungent milk,
minced onions
begin to sizzle…
(2004)
SARAH MACLAY (BORN 1956)
My Lavenderdom
—as in, pre-flutter, that kingdom of semi-purpleness—should I say dome of —that area of anti-limp, lawnless, drunk on your fingering, unfingering—that omnivore, oh, eating now your—even your branches, iceless, antifrozen, gazelle flying toward the twin kingdoms of your cheekness (more at “flying buttress”), nearly periwinkling now—that perpetrator of the semi-grunt, grunt, instigator of the groanful demi-flood of—flutter, flutter, post-flutter—gorge of neomauve, rich canal of sunsetish plush, now unguardedly sub-fuschia; that private brandied eyelash batting at you in its brashest postcool queenness, plump and succulent as a plum—
(2000)
CECILIA WOLOCH (BORN 1956)
Bareback Pantoum
One night, bareback and young, we rode through the woods
and the woods were on fire—
two borrowed horses, two local boys
whose waists we clung to, my sister and I,
and the woods were on fire—
the pounding of hooves and the smell of smoke and the sharp
sweat of boys
whose waists we clung to, my sister and I,
as we rode toward flame with the sky in our mouths—
the pounding of hooves and the smell of smoke and the sharp
sweat of boys
and the heart saying: mine
as we rode toward flame with the sky in our mouths—
the trees turning gold, then crimson, white
and the heart saying: mine
of the wild, bright world;
the trees turning gold, then crimson, white
as they burned in the darkness, and we were girls
of the wild, bright world
of the woods near our house—we could turn, see the lights
as they burned in the darkness, and we were girls
so we rode just to ride
through the woods near our house—we could turn, see the lights—
and the horses would carry us, carry us home
so we rode just to ride,
my sister and I, just to be close to the danger of love
and the horses would carry us, carry us home
—two borrowed horses, two local boys,
my sister and I—just to be close to that danger, desire—
one night, bareback and young, we rode through the woods.
(2003)
CATHERINE BOWMAN (BORN 1957)
Demographics
They don’t want to stop. They can’t stop.
They’ve been going at it for days now,
for hours, for months, for years. He’s on top
of her. She’s on top of him. He’s licking
her between the legs. Her fingers
are in his mouth. It’s November.
It’s March. It’s July and there are palms.
Palms and humidity. It’s the same man.
It’s a different man. It’s August and slabs
of heat waves wallow on tarred lots.
Tornadoes sprawl across open plains.
Temperatures rise. Rains accumulate.
Somewhere a thunderstorm dies. Somewhere
a snow falls, colored by the red dust
of a desert. She spreads her legs. His lips
suck her nipples. She smells his neck.
It’s morning. It’s night. It’s noon.
It’s this year. It’s last year. It’s 4 a.m.
It started when the city shifted growth
to the north, over the underground
water supply. Now the back roads are gone
where they would drive, the deer glaring into
the headlights, Wetmore and Thousand Oaks,
and the ranch roads that led to the hill country
and to a trio of deep-moving rivers.
There were low-water crossings. Flood gauges.
Signs for falling rock. There were deer blinds
for sale. There was cedar in the air.
Her hands are on his hips. He’s pushing
her up and down. There are so many things
she’s forgotten. The names of trees. Wars.
Recipes. The trench graves filled with hundreds.
Was it Bolivia? Argentina? Chile?
Was it white gladioli that decorated the altar
where wedding vows were said? There was
a dance floor. Tejano classics.
A motel. A shattered mirror. Flies.
A Sunbelt sixteen-wheeler. Dairy Queens.
Gas stations. The smells of piss and cement.
There was a field of corn, or was it cotton?
There were yellow trains and silver silos.
They can’t stop. They don’t want to stop.
It’s spring, and five billion inhale
and exhale across two hemispheres. Oceans
form currents and countercurrents.
There was grassland. There was sugar cane.
There were oxen. Metallic ores.
There was Timber. Fur-bearing animals.
Rice lands. Industry. Tundra. Winds
cool the earth’s surface. Thighs press
against thighs. Levels of water fluctuate.
And yesterday a lightning bolt reached
a temperature hotter than the sun.
(1993)
ED SMITH (1957–2005)
Poem
I reached into his pajamas and put my hand on his little
cock—only it wasn’t so little! As a matter of fact it was
over eight feet long! “How can your dick be so big and still fit
in your pj’s?” I asked suggestively. “Well, you know, it’s all
magic,” he replied quizzically.
The head of his penis parted my pussy lips irrationally.
Since his dick is eight feet long and I’m only five-two it had to
go somewhere. I felt his rock-hard boyhood filling up my
insides, then I felt his force parting my tonsils then
pressing the back of my teeth.
Like a tulip in the spring, or maybe a marigold—nay—a
sunflower! his head emerged from my head. It was so long
it was sticking a foot and a half out of my mouth yet he
was sitting across the room in the rocking chair.
I reached up and star
ted stroking his shaft with my hands
wet with my saliva and pussy juices gentle at first then
with increasing vigor. Finally he came like an epileptic
firehose pulsating up through my entire being. His cum
literally soaked the floor but every drop missed me. It was
the best safe sex I ever had.
(c. 1986–1987)
NIN ANDREWS (BORN 1958)
How to Have an Orgasm: Examples
In ancient Greece, it was the object of a young woman to seduce a god. Warm summer days, nubile maidens lay nude in the meadows or on the beaches, legs parted as they waited for clouds, birds or bulls to descend upon them. To capture a god in orgasm could cause immortality or earthquakes.
In Barbados, orgasms are known to take on the dimensions of houses. Some are claustrophobic cottages inhabited by insomniacs, some are castles ruled by the strict orders of bitchy queens, while others are multi-storied hotels with visitors from all over the world. In the lobby of the hotels women discuss the theater and model the latest styles in fur coats and lingerie while in the background an orchestra plays the 1812 Overture.
After death, a monogamous man is forced to sit with his late, beloved wife and watch reruns of the movies his mind played in their most intimate moments.
All orgasms are actors and actresses. While some orgasms deliver soliloquies, others glide noiselessly across the blond carpet of your skin.
On cool autumn evenings, on the highways of Virginia, a woman races her black Corvette. Close behind her a police car whines, red lights flashing. Before the night is over, the woman with jet-black hair will be held in the arms of a moaning sheriff, tire tracks and skid marks embedded in one another’s flesh and dreams.
At Himalayan altitudes, orgasms are rare, occur in different colors and float off without us as puffy clouds. Sometimes couples sigh and admire a luminescent pink orgasm as it vanishes into the horizon. Other times a woman stares accusingly at her lover while pointing to a vile, gray plume, Is that the best you can do?