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. 

Once a week, the PEN Poetry Series publishes work by emerging and established writers from coast to coast. Subscribe to the PEN Poetry Series mailing list and have poems delivered to your e-mail as soon as they are published (no spam, no news, just poems).