(After a friend asked me why
I didn't write more poems about sex)

For one thing, it's hard to get away with,
caught as we are red-handed in the Chamber
of Mimesis, one of those kinky rooms
with mirrors all over the walls and ceiling
where we hope to satisfy our unspeakable needs
but get instead an abyss of dwindling reflections.
Also, it's less like being in bed with a lover
than standing alone in front of a copy machine
Xeroxing her panties and bra. Snaps and garters
give way to the block and tackle of narrative,
which no amount of fumbling will undo.
Now tell me, does that sound like fun to you?

Sometimes, however, while we are looking
elsewhere, the green-gold dust of pollen falls
and begins to settle over everything
like an idea that takes over without our knowing
and adds a glow to whatever we see,
and we find ourselves in the middle of a sentence
we want to keep going, clause after clause,
as if the sinuosities of syntax were
the suave unfolding of limbs and skin
and language a seduction to which we love
to succumb, feeling the words take shape in our mouths
and tasting them on someone else's tongue.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

In the letter "Laying Late-Night Cable," it was misstated that "Shelly became immediately aroused at the sight of my rock-hard member straining to be free from my jeans." In truth, Shelly's initial demeanor would be best described as visibly uncomfortable and leery. She did not achieve a state of arousal until learning—after several awkward drinks—that performing fellatio would result in a free month of HBO and Starz.

- - - -

In the letter "Three-Way Freeway," it was implied that "Diana" begged for the opportunity to participate in sexual relations with her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend after accidentally walking in on their "sweaty, all-night lovemaking session." In actual fact, "Diana" was not aware of her participation in the "love sandwich" until she regained consciousness later that evening.

- - - -

In the letter "And Wifey Makes Three," the letter writer stated: "My wife was eager to engage in a threesome with me and our incredibly hot 19-year-old babysitter." The sentence should read: "My wife was disgusted, repulsed, and, in every imaginable way, opposed to the thought of engaging in a threesome with me and our incredibly hot 19-year-old babysitter." Nor did the wife "wildly undulate" while seated on the face of the babysitter, or "moan in unending pleasure" as she watched her "superstud" of a husband give the babysitter "a good seeing-to." The letter writer also doesn't fight crime on the weekends from the confines of a secret underground lair...

When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those gold bodies,
translucent strangers glistening along the
stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the
odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the
ends, delicate and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

So winter closed its fist
and got it stuck in the pump.
The plunger froze up a lump

in its throat, ice founding itself
upon iron. The handle
paralysed at an angle.

Then the twisting of wheat straw
into ropes, lapping them tight
round stem and snout, then a light

that sent the pump up in flame
it cooled, we liftd her latch,
her entrance was wet, and she came.

I am a sex positive feminist. I believe that being in control of one’s sexual self involves having access to information that allows for informed decision making. I also believe that it involves access to the medical treatments and technology –from condoms to regular Pap smears to Gardasil to abortion procedures – that put women in charge of their bodies. I believe in sexual self-determination, that each person has a right to determine who she will be intimate with, and in what context, without being judged for her choices or forced into others. I believe that being in control of one’s sexual self is an integral part of autonomous adulthood, and until women are given the right to control our sexual selves we will continue to be treated like children in this paternalistic society.

I reject the traditional representation of all things sexual as dirty or shameful. I do not believe that “anything consensually sexual goes, as long as orgasm is the aim.” I believe that anything consensually sexual goes; I don’t care if you’re doing it or not, how you do it, what genders you prefer to do it with, how many people you do (at once or separately), if you’re using porn or sex toys, or if you like it kinky, as long as you’ve got the information you need to make informed decisions. I stand just as strongly for a woman’s right not to have sex (of any kind) if she doesn’t want to, and I believe that women who make that decision deserve support and protection as well. I do not believe that I am an object belonging to the person I’m having sex with, unless I want to be. I do not believe I am a victim of masculine sexuality...

How many years have we been doing this, now?
Where every time it is the same
And still so strikingly new
Fascinating
Exhilirating
Heartbreaking.
We always speak in hypotheticals
Like we don't know exactly where we'll end up
Tangled in each other
Panting
Heaving
Exhausted
And breathless...

Many are making love. Up above, the angels
in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing
are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond
and the texture of cold rivers. They glance
down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy--
it must look to them like featherless birds
splashing in the spring puddle of a bed--
and then one woman, she is about to come,
peels back the man's shut eyelids and says,
look at me, and he does. Or is it the man
tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater?
Anyway, they do, they look at each other;
two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious,
startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet
lubricious glue, stare at each other,
and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically
like lithographs of Victorian beggars
with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags
in the lewd alleys of the novel.
All of creation is offended by this distress.
It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes,
rising. The lovers especially cannot bear it,
it fills them with unspeakable sadness, so that
they close their eyes again and hold each other, each
feeling the mortal singularity of the body
they have enchanted out of death for an hour so,
and one day, running at sunset, the woman says to the man,
I woke up feeling so sad this morning because I realized
that you could not, as much as I love you,
dear heart, cure my loneliness,
wherewith she touched his cheek to reassure him
that she did not mean to hurt him with this truth...

Engage me, seduce me, beguile me
Get your hands on my fabulous arse
Enrage me, reduce me, defile me
Let my fantasies all come to pass

Enthrall me, cajole me, control me
For your words orchestrate my demise
Besprawl me, despoil me, console me
As your knees force their way twixt my thighs

Contain me, absorb me, distress me
Is there no act my soul will reject?
Restrain me, disturb me, possess me
While my morals you slowly dissect...

"Five minutes!" came the warning over the loudspeaker.

"Showtime," I muttered under my breath as I checked myself once more in the mirror. Decked out, head to toe, I was in a second skin of latex. It covered every inch save for my mouth, eyes, and behind. The latex gleamed in the light of the dressing room. I adjusted everything just so and looked myself in the eyes, wondering how the person who looked back at me had gotten into such a strange position.

"Places!" came the voice again. No time for introspection. Time for action. Time to be a "star."

I followed the labyrinthine hallway into today's set. It was dressed like a prison cell. Inside just a bunk, a sink, and an incongruous padded sawhorse.

There were no lines to memorize. Hell, there wasn't usually dialogue other than what was improvised. Without having to be told, I bent over the sawhorse, my ass in the air and my mouth held open by the O-Ring atached to the latex headpiece....

Airline pilots do it at incredible heights.
Anaesthetists do it until you fall asleep.
Archaeologists do it in the dirt.
Bach did it with the organ.
Bakers do it for the dough.
Ballet dancers do it on tip-toe.
Bankers do it with interest, but pay for early withdrawl.
Bartenders do it on the rocks.
Bookkeepers do it with double entry.
Dentists do it in your mouth.
Divers do it deeper.
Frank Sinatra does it his way.
.......

Then we will surely be lovers, you and I

For my Absurdly Elaborate desires lack restraint,

they are Immoderate, Intemperate, Gaudy and Baroque

Lavish with ornate detail and

Filled with florid Rococo flesh

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

"Shall I rim you?" I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole...