No End to Lovemaking

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke

SOMETHING MORE PROBABLE



This poem is broken.  I found


It that way, beyond words to fix it.


It was too complex to keep in the mind


Without something untold happening


Just as the words were to reveal


Atmospheres or a startling journey


From which no one could return without


Their entire meaning excluded or compromised.



Passages, contradictions, abnormalities


That were once thought to make it


Possible, now all exceptions to whatever


Reality and deep feeling the poem had.



Now it does not matter what direction


We choose to follow.  The poem will


Have already been there before us


Using meaning as some kind of trick


That actually steals imagination away


From us, giving it to something more probable.

LEARNING TO RECOGNIZE 



I know this land 


In the song of birds,


The fragrance of the flowers.


Always on the edge of eternity.



A match struck at


The end of a dark street.


I see the snowflakes


For a few seconds.



Someone kneeling by the curb


With their head bowed.



This is not the night sky


Making this darkness.



Standing in front of a blackboard,


Someone writes your name.


I have to imagine I know you.

A FEW MOMENTS



Eventually one begins


To lose all faith in the weather.



The eyes become colorless


And it becomes difficult to speak.



While the bells aren’t broken,


They have such a small voice


Winter winds might well


Have been blowing


Through our thin coats.



Spaces for that wind


To stop while the day dies


Around us.

FLIRT



He sounded like a yodel falling down stairs.  All the boys had gone out of the city.  It made it so difficult to start conversations.  They reminded him of automobiles starting; that grinding of the starter bendix and then a nervously loud explosion as the spark plugs lit up the words waiting to be said.  

“Come on outside.  I’m going to drain the anti-freeze from the morning, hoping the day will be a bit warm.”  He lifted her fingers with his own.  She kind of smiled.  She knew he was just another guy in a long string of stories she was collecting, but for now that was going to be enough.  This would be special. 

____________________

BIRDS



She always suspected there was an order to things.  For instance, the seabirds never sang about anything.  They screamed at everything, just like Raleigh when he had a few cups of whiskey in him.  He didn’t mean to scream.  She wished he would be an owl instead.  Still, not singing but somehow more comforting than cursing at furniture and banging the doors.  She liked to plan variety.  When he was affectionate it seemed too carefully planned. 


Once, when he came up behind her and slipped his hands over her breasts while she was scraping the breakfast dishes that had been too long in the sink, she felt he was being vain in a way she could not explain to herself.  She liked how it felt but thought he wasn’t really being honest, more like doing something he felt was necessary, like counting things to make sure they were still there.  She wasn’t still there but she loved that she could count the times he behaved this way, like watching small flocks of birds that did sing, while landing in the trees just outside the windows.

LOVEMAKING



The sky opens 


As I open my hand.


Is this what I shall call 


For a goodbye?



I call to love.


Love does not know


My name.



“Find your own food,”


It says.  There are clouds


Of flies one may easily mistake 


For those winds that will bring 


One higher above whatever 


It is your heart might seek.



And there we would be, making


Love, were not this another 


Name for death that occupies


The gatekeeper in turning

What might have been 


Our bodies in such a glory

Into rooms now occupied


By robes we can no longer wear.



I beg at your thighs for them


To become wings and carry


Me into your dancing.


I decide to become a poem.



The cool winds return.


I sip dreams from your lips.


Watch the spinning clouds


The flies once owned become


Choir after choir of angels,


Their wings unfurled. 


Gone to light, pure light.

We have no end to lovemaking.


_______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I blame my mother for my poor sex life.  All she told me was "the man goes on top and the woman underneath."  For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds.

—Joan Rivers

***

Once you finish having sex, what is there to do but start over?

—Jarod Kinta, This Book is Not FOR SALE

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for this morning’s fine poetry and pix!