I Want So Desperately to be Finished with Desire
This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features a poem by sam sax.
I Want So Desperately to be Finished with Desire
after all my labor
pleasure arrives
inelegant as ever
secondhand chandelier
onion sound
the gutter that grunts
back at you when you spit
in its mouth
//
even with my hand inside him
he’s somewhere else
//
the shipwreck leaves
the paired animal bodies
floating & bloated with salt
//
everyone drags all their past
lovers into bed
all their past beds
& public toilets & foil pipes
& park benches & cutlasses
& cigarettes
& the deadbolt & the dead
//
my hand’s inside him
& he’s with someone else
gone men breathing
gone breath on his neck
//
the brain is a maniac organ
it puppets me
//
i follow a man off the subway
into queens & look up
to see my life has passed
//
every text message i send
is a tongue pushing through the body
of the phone until it laps
at a strained pair of eyes
//
my man wakes up next to me
& recoils
at my hardness
gathered at his thigh
//
two primates
reach between each others legs
& get to work one throws his head
back to stare down god
while the other wants
to leave
//
i press my naked shape
against aquarium glass
& let the squid swarm
my deformed organ
they’re amazed how it fans out
like a sibling
brethren & recognition
//
every old wound dressed
in drag & daggers
//
child of the invert & sodomite
of the lecher in her leper print
gown of the leper bell
& its leper sound
//
my thirst is basic
easily quenched
water will do
//
i used to be wild
unripe fruit
i’d lash myself
to any new mast
while some man stared
down strange
as i strained
& galloped terribly
against his sound
_______________________________________________
Author note: The title of this poem comes from an Aaron Smith poem.
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