Isle<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
No far-fetched fragrance was your familiar
\nAmid Rodos\u2019 dark shambles of mountains
\nBy that Trojan ocean, where first we met,
\nDishing wine in every vintage tavern.
\nI savoured that paralysis of drink\u2014
\nFriendly poison\u2014watching white waves banner
\nThe spring-tide beach, because we were mere friends,
\nAnd I desired\u2014though wed\u2014a darkling tryst.
\n Travel wafts will-o-wisp relationships:
\nCouples uncouple mid wreckage of limbs\u2014
\nOr wordless lips (a mockery of tongues).
\n You allowed no insidious pillow,
\nAnd nixed all love as rickety as air\u2014
\nRhodes\u2019 winds\u2014or brackish as its tides.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Absent Sustenance<\/b><\/p>\n
Unexpectedly voracious am I:
\nDiscipline<\/i> turns irrelevant versus
\nHunger<\/i>, I mean, Desire<\/i>. Agitated
\nSensations leave me keen as a razor,
\nKeening like a razor, while raw fissures
\nSplit wide my heart. Abusive profusions seem
\nMy tears. I feel so uselessly sullen
\nSuddenly: My Desire<\/i>‘s unsatisfied.<\/p>\n
Once an au pair<\/i> girl who came, decades passed,
\nTo tend children and learn English, you’re now
\nThe opposite: Multilingual and far.
\nThat’s why my wine tastes as bland as water
\nOr too much like vinegar. My stomach
\nDevours sour tears: Your breasts don’t give me suck.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Saturnalia<\/b><\/p>\n
Like a boar in corn\u2014wrecking, havocking,
\nFeasting, that\u2019s us, satisfying each pang
\nAnd demand of Hunger<\/i>, each twinge and twang\u2014
\nUninhibited\u2014of belly and maw.
\n Our kinetics ain\u2019t aesthetic: We\u2019re beasts\u2014
\nFamished and fierce. Lust<\/i> is wild Gluttony<\/i>,
\nUncontrollable, inconsolable\u2014
\nIntolerable rutting and glutting\u2026.
\n Our raunchy flanks, our ratcheting haunches,
\nTake to thoroughbred romping and trampling,
\nBreaking the creaking bed. (What can hold us?)
\n Kisses cohere til we\u2019re incoherent\u2014
\nSnarling, gasping, snorting. We tug each other
\nToward the dessert, to taste sweetness as one.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sweets<\/b><\/p>\n
To cherish cherry kisses, and to pluck
\nFrom trembled limb or nest of lips, and suck
\nOn every cheery flesh that nourishes,
\nIs what every choice lover cherishes.<\/p>\n
I was too disciplined when I embraced
\nMy first loves. My pleasures were almost chaste.
\nI was afraid to reveal my needing
\nAll the joy upon which I was feeding.<\/p>\n
But the body’s terrible, if it fails
\nTo cleave to others. Unbearable jails\u2014
\nOr alarms\u2014of morals imprison us,
\nTil candied coitus comes to poison us.<\/p>\n
I want no sweets labelled\u2014libelled\u2014by threats
\nAnd warnings. Cherish sweets one gives and gets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Apr\u00e8s Juvenal <\/b><\/p>\n
Juvenal quartered Rodos and Malta,
\nGibraltar and Morocco: Following,
\nWe\u2019ve toured these redoubts\u2014citadels gods loved,
\nLighting on isles of gusts or ports of sun.
\n We cross salt water, and lightning crosses
\nOur skies; I cut round corners to corner
\nYour kisses\u2014as fluid as snow passing
\nInto rain, quartering all these four lands.
\n March soaked Rodos and August seared Malta;
\nDecember delivered us Gibraltar
\nAnd Morocco, snow-cold, though lacking snow.
\n Rodos cradled solely my solo dreams.
\nWe\u2019ve coupled, on all fours, in but three
\nQuarters of Juvenal\u2019s \u201cquartet.\u201d Love<\/i> keeps score.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Heavenly Earthy<\/b><\/p>\n
Our shadows, quivering, were royally
\nHappy, as were our illuminated
\nPhysiques, our conflagration of livid
\nFaces, vivid in the heaving sunlight.<\/p>\n
My body was bronze; yours was quite sun-browned,
\nSo altogether lovely, singled out,
\nYour legs fluttering like each eyelash;
\nYour two breasts were two cups at which I drank.<\/p>\n
Pain<\/i> should be painstaking to be sweet.
\nYou flinched, at first, to receive my measure,
\nBut turned rampant, Modesty<\/i> denuded,
\nAs we bucked\u2014two horses\u2014past Repression<\/i>.<\/p>\n
As happily tumultuous as martyrs,
\nCelestial beings, we came, bestial, to earth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Horseman<\/b><\/p>\n
I want to make love as if I have hooves
\nAnd horns, and snort my sunny, Maltese joy,
\nMy scot-free bluster, to take you and break
\nBlissfully the bed, our flanks, quivering.
\n Delirium, my generous woman,
\nIs our lot; no flinching. Incoherent
\nSpasms, a loud Braille, spell our spoiling
\nClimax, our rime royale<\/i>, our hard-earned cries.
\n I must be animal and a poet\u2014
\nTo trot out lines and totter into bed
\nOr roar out rhymes while romping in our sheets.
\n You scratch, you bite, but you don\u2019t slap, and I\u2019m grateful:
\nYour \u201canimal\u201d being bears no animus:
\nHear my snorting mouth! Your kisses retort!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Isle No far-fetched fragrance was your familiar Amid Rodos\u2019 dark shambles of mountains By that Trojan ocean, where first we met, Dishing wine in every vintage tavern. I savoured that paralysis of drink\u2014 Friendly poison\u2014watching white waves banner The spring-tide beach, because we were mere friends, And I desired\u2014though wed\u2014a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1395,"parent":229,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-667","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1454,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/667\/revisions\/1454"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}