SO LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ONE NIGHT STANDS
Inevitably, there are penises
hanging from conversations about love.
Over the phone, our wires of words dangle above
what we mean.
He put his you-know-what
you-know-where. It was electric.
Thousands of volts
seized my curvy body, but he couldn’t
pick up when I called. There’s a ghost in his pocket.
He left it. Vibrating through his bones.
A wire he couldn’t cut.
Couldn’t say
I don’t like when your legs curl around my head
like a sunset.
Fragments of orange light slicing
into another hemisphere of feeling. That is
what the night is like.
The morning after stands still, tight
with presumed coffee and chatter. No, he won’t say it, won’t say
it’s not you but it’s us.
We’re the penthouse door hung open
without asking for rent.
We think we own the whole neighborhood
with our freedom.
Outside,
the dildos dangle
from a power line. Watch the wind swing them without gentleness.
—Poets Respond
July 19, 2015
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Bayleigh Cardinal: “After reading about phallic sex toys hanging from the power lines in Portland, I couldn’t resist the call of that imagery.” (website)
