Are the Stars Out?

blink once and you're gone

Perhaps it's a myopic conclusion.
but memories of my life in sex
seem best approached
sideways and nonchalant.
To me, they only appear in focus
when I look at them askance,
almost from the corner of my eye.
It's like trying to catch sight
of the Pleiades head on,
the particulars only fade when faced down.

For the most part, I remember the facts.
I know the first breast I bussed.
I can easily picture her pale pink nipples
and the gaudy plaid of her parents' couch.
I remember the song that was playing
when she pulled off her top.
But, beyond that, there
on the tip of a smile, both skin and cloth
quickly fade into a ball of fuzz
east of Taurus,
the poignant snort of a bull.

And, of course, my first orgasm
is the stuff of myth --
epic and embellished
in the retelling.
Perhaps the facts of that late night episode aren't facts.
Perhaps the Odyssey wasn't as grand as all that
and my own sticky scared confused joy of an instant
was less than I think, more than I know.

Even the first pussy I poked
is lost in a nebula of subsequent history --
whisky of the dueling seduction,
the big bang of unintended disdain,
explosive distance and then our eventual reconstitution
as old friends. (I must admit,
there are several stars in that constellation.)

You see, while I know it takes 440 years
for light to travel from the Pleiades
just to play tricks on my eyes.
I can only suspect that the distance
between my heart and my brain,
between my cock and my memory,
is much less yet also far less direct.

And while I can't quite see them,
I know that around those stars dance
a host of nearly invisible suitors,
a hundred beaus for each of Seven Sisters,
a thousand kisses for each beau,
a million ways that each time I push into you
and hear you sigh and let go
it is both old and new.

In semi-darkness and without my glasses,
I see what I don't see:
bottle of lube, pack o' Pills.
candle, book, sheen of sweat.
hair falling across your face.
our fingers, white-knuckled, entwined.
the dent of my weight
pushing your wrists into the mattress.

Which way do I look
to see the memory beginning?
Which way do I look
to keep from seeing it end?

# # # # #


Hear this poem read aloud...

Comments:

• Not a single comment on the poem. I bet you would all comment on a limerick, wouldn’t you???!!!

  Posted by Prospero  on  01/28/07  at  12:06 AM
  
  

• you know i love to hear your voice. and i love to read your writings.

  i’m glad you’re back up and running, and i’m embarassed that it took me this long to get back over here.

  good job, Prospero. i’m really glad you’re back.

  ~m.

  Posted by michelle  on  03/02/07  at  11:04 AM
  
  
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