The brittle bones of ecstasy
in old age make me wonder
if I'm not wholly derivative
carnal knowledge wasted
on some devil who's just rolled over
away from Eve, who, smoking a ciggy
in the Eden moonlight by the sea,
perhaps wonders what she sees in me
an old barnacle with worn out sins
arrogance, presumption, limp pride
the original academic with tenure
with more and more to hide
or, do I project? Perhaps she's the shortcomer
with questions to answer for
using me for the summer's delight
to pash and ponder over Gallo wine
the abovely luminesences, her test results
and on that note I ask about the pill
and she says No and there's a chill
and the evening comes to gather its clothes
and I say goodbye to her
and give her a gift certificate good for a rose.
.
and when she comes rushing in on high horse
seeking a kind of academic divorce
angry, she let me touch her clitoris
only to receive a failure for the course
because she failed to cite a source
but, I said, grades can be changed
and she looked at me all Dorothea Langed
suddenly I was a scholar befanged
a licentious whore-man tenured deranged
derivative unoriginal love, dog manged
.
and that night over dinner, Eve proposed
in a pre-nup kind of way, certain principles
that would honor the spirit of our delights
while securing the pursary, so to speak,
and we were happily ever after engaged
during the semester's office hours
two blankets on the floor, scented candles
and she would do me, do me
until all the knuckles in my body cracked
.
we married, of course, she was a keeper
and we climbed the tree of knowledge together
she first in her flowery pinafore
that smelled of jasmine and ginger
and it turned out many years later
that her thesis on carnality was prize stuff
that she knew more than me -- what a laugh!
the day she slammed the feckin door.
