originally published on August 15 2018
A good fuck poem is a secret concoction
of citrus and sage, lavender, vetiver, temperature, night.
It makes you want to take off all your clothes, your yesterdays,
your tomorrows. Lay them down. Be at peace with your body, each curve and line,
from inside your ears to your outstretched toes.
A good fuck poem walks you to the shower and scrubs your back.
Warm water streams down your face, across your eyelids,
clumping the tips of your lashes, descending
the bridge of your nose, the bend of your lips, your collarbones.
Water pools beneath your feet, escaping
down the drain in search of sea. A good fuck poem
dries you off, massages oil into your back, your chest, your thighs and calves.
Kisses your cheeks, whispers behind an ear, amber stanzas
without rhyme. Something about your hips, your stride, your mind.
A good fuck poem is egalitarian. It delights
in your existence. Admires the tiniest curl growing
with determination at the crook of your neck
the same way it does your spine, your latismus dorsi,
your gluteus maximus.
It turns on with the sound of your voice,
even if you are talking about vegetables, bicycles,
or dragons — even if you are talking about shoes.
It catalogues your sighs, moans, and quakes
as verifiable data in its sound bank
on the surface of its terabyte tongue.
A good fuck poem is non-violent. It is curious.
It takes note. There is time and no rush.
The moon is bright, the morning can wait,
and the smooth blue sheets stretching across
the bed will never smell the same again.
A good fuck poem doesn’t discriminate
against cock or pussy, breast or pectoral
muscle, bellybutton or small of back. It seeks
what you like, and it likes what it likes,
and the moral of the story agreed upon is pleasure.
A good fuck poem writes itself on the skin.
It doesn’t know exactly where, or what,
or how, but it knows you
are the map — your back, your hands
and fingers, your thighs.
It speaks to you in honey, whispers oxygen prayers,
and is loyal to your ankles. It wants
your tongue on the elbow, the clit, the belly,
the erection, the anus, the nipple, the backbone,
the neck, between the thumb and index finger.
It rubs against your habits of mind. It listens and it speaks.
It summons and surrenders. It leads
and it follows. It speaks in every language,
a grammar made of kindness. Shapeless and timeless. Nothing
and everything. The immortal surge of creation and demise.
I don’t know how to fuck without loving. This good fuck poem
loves down to the marrow, counting blessings on its digits,
because you are living, and the poem is alive.