<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Desire<div><br></div><div><div id="poem" class="tab-content active"><div class="poem" style="margin-top: 25px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div><span style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">A woman in my class wrote that she is sick</span><br style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><span style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">of men wanting her body and when she reads</span><br style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><span style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">her poem out loud the other women all nod</span><br style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><span style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">and even some of the men lower their eyes</span><br style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><br style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><span style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">and look abashed as if ready to unscrew</span><br style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><span style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">th</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">eir cocks and pound down their own dumb heads<br>with these innocent sausages of flesh, and none<br>would think of confessing his hunger<br><br>or admit how desire can ring like a constant<br>low note in the brain or grant how the sight<br>of a beautiful woman can make him groan<br>on those first spring days when the parkas<br><br>have been packed away and the bodies are staring<br>at the bodies and the eyes stare at the ground;<br>and there was a man I knew who even at ninety<br>swore that his desire had never diminished.<br><br>Is this simply the wish to procreate, the world<br>telling the cock to eat faster, while the cock<br>yearns for that moment when it forgets its loneliness<br>and the world flares up in an explosion of light?<br><br>Why have men been taught to feel ashamed<br>of their desire, as if each were a criminal<br>out on parole, a desperado with a long record<br>of muggings, rapes, such conduct as excludes<br><br>each one from all but the worst company,<br>and never to be trusted, no never to be trusted?<br>Why must men pretend to be indifferent as if each<br>were a happy eunuch engaged in spiritual thoughts?<br><br>But it's the glances that I like, the quick ones,<br>the unguarded ones, like a hand snatching a pie<br>from a window ledge and the feet pounding away;<br>eyes fastening on a leg, a breast, the curve<br><br>of a buttock, as the pulse takes an extra thunk<br>and the cock, that toothless worm, stirs in its sleep,<br>and fat possibility swaggers into the world<br>like a big spender entering a bar. And sometimes<br><br>the woman glances back. Oh, to disappear<br>in a tangle of fabric and flesh as the cock<br>sniffs out its little cave, and the body hungers<br>for closure, for the completion of the circle,<br><br>as if each of us were born only half a body<br>and we spend our lives searching for the rest.<br>What good does it do to deny desire, to chain<br>the cock to the leg and scrawl a black X<br><br>across its bald head, to hold out a hand<br>for each passing woman to slap? Better<br>to be bad and unrepentant, better to celebrate<br>each difference, not to be cruel or gluttonous<br><br>or overbearing, but full of hope and self-forgiving.<br>The flesh yearns to converse with other flesh.<br>Each pore loves to linger over its particular story.<br>Let these seconds not be full of self-recrimination<br><br>and apology. What is desire but the wish for some<br>relief from the self, the prisoner let out <br>into a small square of sunlight with a single<br>red flower and a bird crossing the sky, to lean back<br><br>against the bricks with the legs outstretched,<br>to feel the sun warming the brow, before returning<br>to one's mortal cage, steel doors slamming<br>in the cell block, steel bolts sliding shut?</span><br></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><br></span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(55, 64, 78); line-height: 18px; ">Stephen Dobyns</span></div></div></div><div></div><div> </div></div></body></html>