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      March 13, 2012Cheap TalkKarla Huston

      While talking to students about aging
      and sex the other day, I read disgust on their lips
      when they considered parents and grandparents
      having it. One kid said he couldn’t imagine
      an old guy actually getting it up, not to mention
      getting it in as if in were a destination on a wrinkled
      map—hotel no-tell in a dusty town in Ohio. All that
      cheap talk, their snortling and knowing smiles. Like sex
      was only for the young and beautiful and doing it
      was beautiful to see which, of course,
      it isn’t. All those upended parts, privates
      exposed, the inside body smells, the playground
      between two sewers, the plunge and grunt, posturing
      for position. The worry about fit and flattery,
      performance and         review.
      The act so animal like, ball and socket,
      tab and slot push and shove         bang and
      cushion. Of course no one thinks
      about that—the acrobatics, the open mouths,
      the hard wetness, the way it feels when man enters
      the deep slice, the filling vessel         the hopeful work
      to get to where it feels so damned right.

      from #25 - Summer 2006

      Karla Huston

      “Reading poetry is like a walk in a prairie: Black-eyed Susans bobble in a sea of green, Queen Anne’s Lace doilies float above the leather tongues of burdock. There is a surprise in every turn of word, and in every phrase and line, something new grows.”