sexual graphs and charts of a marriage

sometimes i hate you
because you knew the golden curve
of my arm, the hairs erect and lit as sun
you touched, the supine leg, the sleek
beautiful muscles, turning and flexing
like dolphins. you opened your eyes
in bed and saw the sharp gloss belly,
the curves like church sides, worshipped.
you touched me. the round ass, smooth
and firm, with give. enough give.
you desired me like water. i saw
your entire future lit up in the magnifying
glass of my powers: i was mesmerizing
you with my all powerful body, the truly
amazing sexuality of the young female
honed with poetry and a gritty life, made
with these elixers into something unstoppable.
lovemaking lost my mind. when i came to,
i felt like the Captain of the ship: everything
in working order, legs locked, arms strained,
tits high, every muscle and tendon long and loose-
the expression on your face made me feel
slightly sorry for you, poor stunned rabbit.
heads turn! hallalujah! fights break out!
for a few years i think i caused a fight,
every single time we went dancing,
fell a little more in love with you
every single time you defended my honor,
claimed your place in my thighs with your big heart.
yes you had a young man's body but let's
not bullshit anyone: it's simply not the same for men.
little else to claim for me then: beauty and soul,
my body and my face made me euphoric and terrified:
i was sure i could never be loved for anything more
than the perfection of my rib cage, the downy indents
on my back, the lay of perfectly measured fat over
my hipbones, where your hands held me, trembling.
i had the misery of a broken bleating childhood
abuse, suffering, loneliness, madness on all sides,
alcoholism, manic depression, anxiety, schizophrenia,
and then the saving graces: beauty and soul.
i had a baby and broke both into his little pink face
like an egg yolk over the best sufflee.
sometimes to be a mother feels like this:
to have distilled the finest of myself into someone else.
darling i know you love me you desire me
yes you want me now. still sometimes i hate you
for the same reason i often love you.
because you knew me then.
because you know me know.
this is what happens
when you fall in love so young, spending the first four
years doing nothing but fucking, as if you invented the
way it all ends up, as if you were the mold they broke to repeat.

maggie may ethridge
august 09