For today’s post I offer two poems written by amazing friends and poets with whom I have joyfully collaborated. These (solo) poems are both called WHEN I WAS STRAIGHT—Maureen’s written first (from Little Ice Age, 2001) with Julie’s homage to follow (When I Was Straight, 2014).
When I Was Straight (by Maureen Seaton)
When I was straight I dreamed of nipples,
my dreams were crowded with cleavage and yin,
I read a book that said if you are fickle
about sex, note your obsession in dreams
then do the opposite in real life. This
made sense, my boyfriend said, although it seemed
oddly like a game of Exquisite Corpse
to me. We’d make love, I’d dream of figs,
that drizzled pink, and sometimes I’d lapse
into madrigals (meaning: of the womb), big
leap from the straightforward sessions in bed
of linearity and menthol. Legs
would cross and uncross in my dreams, heads
fall back with me at the throat. I adored
the winged clavicle, that link between breast-
bone and scapula. Straight as gin, I poured
myself into pretense and fellatio,
you could count on me for bold orgasms, for
trapeze art and graceful aerobics, oh
there is no lover like a panicked lover.
Once I dreamed of abandoning the Old
Boyfriend Theory of Headache and Blunder-
buss. Believe me, I said, this will hurt him
more than me, but the dream laughed! Torture
me, I thought, now that even my id
has turned against me, there is something fragile
here to lose, exquisite truth, and I did.
When I Was Straight (by Julie Marie Wade)
I did not love women as I do now.
I loved them with my eyes closed, my back turned.
I loved them silent, & startled, & shy.
The world was a dreamless slumber party,
sleeping bags like straitjackets spread out on
the living room floor, my face pressed into a
slender pillow.
All night I woke to rain on the strangers’ windows.
No one remembered to leave a light on in the hall.
Someone’s father seemed always to be shaving.
When I stood up, I tried to tiptoe
around the sleeping bodies, their long hair
speckled with confetti, their faces blanched by the
porch-light moon.
I never knew exactly where the bathroom was.
I tried to wake the host girl to ask her, but she was
only one adrift in that sea of bodies. I was ashamed
to say they all looked the same tome, beautiful &
untouchable as stars. It would be years before
I learned to find anyone in the sumptuous,
terrifying dark.
Ed. note: See also https://marshhawkpress.org/denise-duhamel-in-praise-of-colette-inezs-pay-yourself-first/ for Denise Duhamel’s essay in praise of Colette Inez. Here’s how it begins. In 1990 I had the pleasure of reading with Colette Inez in a library in Tarrytown, NY. We bonded immediately—we were both wearing all black. We both had (dyed) red hair. We were both Geminis with June birthdays. We were both of French heritage. Colette had a French mother and French-American father who was really a Father (a priest!) which deserves its own essay, of course, and of which she wrote brilliant poems and a heart wrenching memoir The Secret of M. Dulong. >>>
Go to Source
Author: Denise Duhamel
