We read the same books as children- Kipling, <br />Haggard, Stevenson- and dreamt adventure, <br />but they went off, the boys, to munch on sago <br />grubs with cannibals, be rocked to sleep <br /> <br />in a hold where rats and roaches rustled <br />under the slap of a moon-starched sail <br />and on the volcano's steaming lip, pose <br />for the camera, their calves fringed with leeches. <br /> <br />Coming to adventure late I'm not sure <br />I'd savor grubs. I didn't join my Burmese <br />bus companions when they dined with their <br />right hands. On a tramp off Sumatra's coast, <br /> <br />I held a scream, a bobbing bathtub toy <br />in my throat, as two-inch roaches filed <br />above my head. My bones ached to the marrow <br />scrambling up to fourteen thousand feet. <br /> <br />I envy the acceptance that accrues to cocks. <br />They are the universal, catholic sex. <br />Witch doctors don't ask wives why they've allowed <br />their husbands out to roam the world alone. <br /> <br />Green with begrudging as a young rice field, <br />I'm a prurient curiosity, <br />in my unorthodox sex, to the local men <br />in foreign towns who hope, or else assume. <br /> <br />They're shoals to navigate with care as I <br />tack Malacca's strait, round java's head <br />sails spread and bellying to cross the shadow <br />line, gathering my way before the salty wind.<br /><br />Karen Swenson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/what-does-a-woman-want-2/
