Why feel guilty because the death of a lover causes lust? <br />It is only an animal urge to perpetuate the species, <br />but if I do not inhibit my imagination and dreams <br />I can see your skull smiling up at me from underground <br />and your bones loosely arranged in the missionary position. <br />This is not an incapacitating vision except at night, <br />and not a will of constancy, nor an irrevocable trust, <br />so I take on a woman with a mouth like an open wound. <br />I would do almost anything to avoid your teeth in the dirt. <br />She is desirable, loving, and definite, but when I feel her up <br />I hesitate: I still feel the site of your absence. It is <br />as large as the silence of your invitational smile <br />or the vacancy open in the cage of your ribs. Fuck that, <br />I say. Why be guilty for this guilt? It’s only birth control. <br />Therefore I extend my hands tongue and prick to you <br />through her as substitutions for the rest of my body <br />in hopes that you’ll be born again as her daughter <br />before I have to join you as your permanent husband, <br />but I know you: you want me to come, come as I am, <br />right now, without her, and to bring along a son.<br /><br />Alan Dugan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/untitled-poem-iii/
