Finale
How you'd begin would never be the same;
at times you'd even face me for a while.
But always, in that drive before you came,
you'd flip me over, finish doggy-style.
Another funny thing: you'd never try
to steal a peek at me when I undressed.
I wondered if you'd rather have a guy,
if that was why you covered up my breasts.
Or maybe I was wrong, and you were straight,
but ex or mama used to yak, yak, yak;
you'd shove my mouth into the pillowcase
to face an uncommunicative back.
I haven't met her yet, your newest friend,
and yet I'd bet my butt about the end.
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This one makes me smile, and not just because it's so matter-of-fact about a sexual topic, or because the diction is so down-to-earth. I love the pillowcase/face rhyme, that just-right word "uncommunicative," met/yet/friend in L13 (lots of
assonance here – coincidence, or brilliant matching of sound with sense?), that string of t's in L14 – yet/bet/butt/about – and the fact that the last two words are "the end," which not only wraps things up nicely, but ties in with the title. Oh, and the turn is perfect: "Or maybe I was wrong..."
Now that it's late and I'm tired and grouchy, though, I find I do have a couple of reservations. First, it's yet another bawdy-humor sonnet. An excellent specimen, but what I really admire, and rarely encounter, is a sex sonnet that's actually sexy. Robert Crawford's
French Braids , for example (his poem, that is, not his hairdo): it's not explicit, it's all done with suggestion. Maz has a wonderful sonnet I'd have loved to link to, "Hippolyta on a Field of Linen," but now she's tweaking it again. Of course it's unfair to complain that a poem of Type X is not a poem of Type Y.
I also wonder if that faintly judgmental aroma I'm now picking up is just my imagination. Probably. Nevermind. Ignore me.
Threaded Mode
