2025.156
I wrote nothing in the past month because I wasn't curious about anything. It was terrible– despite being moderately self-absorbed, I was incurious about my thoughts. What I believed were ineluctable– deeply personal thoughts & feelings of my own– were actually just some palm-sized boats in the ocean, ready to vanish. All of May, I was shut like a fist but felt as though everything I experienced was attenuating my skin. For example, when a poet used the word "tender" in three separate poems in her book, my bones shivered from secondhand embarrassment. Such indulgence in opting for the equivocal adjective. The imaginary touch of the dead husband, the mural in the cave, & the herd of deer... all "tender"... like the lamb chop she ordered at Cognac...
The poet I am describing here is not Marie Howe. I clarify this because in the effort to overcome this incuriosity, detrimental to my writing, I picked up a book by Marie Howe & found this delightful poem:
On Men, Their Bodies
One penis was very large and thick so when he put it inside me I really did
say, Wow. One penis was uncircumcised, and I loved to grip the shaft and
pull down so the head popped out like a little man. One penis was curved so
I had to move in a different way. One penis was so friendly I was never afraid
of it. One penis was so slender I was startled. One penis was blunt and short
like a little pig. One penis couldn't harden until he stuffed it soft inside me.
One penis came as soon as I started to move. I'm so sorry, he said I have a
problem, but I didn't care. I loved that boy. One penis pressed against me hard
almost every morning, but I got out of bed as if I hadn't heard a word it had
said. One penis was so dear to me I kissed it even after I knew
it had been with someone else. One penis I never saw, but my hand came to
know if from the outside of his jeans. One penis loved the inside of my mouth
so much it sang, it sputtered. One had a name. One was a mouse. One, he
explained to me, had very very tiny crabs, so we couldn't have sex for a while.
One was Orthodox and wouldn't touch blood. One had a mole, a hard little
dot just under the rim. One penis was extremely patient without making a big
deal about it. One penis had a great sense of humor. One penis had herpes
but I didn't know that word yet. One was a battering ram. One was a drunk
staggering, a lout, a bully. One slept inside me, comfortably at home.