Thursday, January 28, 2010

Promises, Promises

Copy-editing today our sole poetry manuscript for Spring: David Starkey's A Few Things You Should Know About the Weasel. Thought it might be a good day to share a poem:

Promises, Promises

The question, emailed from someone I don’t know,
nevertheless looms large: Dream to be a hero
in her bed? Of course, I do—this is my wife
we’re talking about. How could I fail

to be interested in the elaborate
and ungrammatical come-ons: Enlarge
you’re banana length! Don’t loose your passion
to bad potence! Get ready to the wildest nights

of your life with the original blue-pill!
Yes, she tells me there’s more to marriage
than physical love—taking out the trash,
for instance, vacuuming and laundry

and picking up after our St. Bernard—
but surely my satisfactory discharge
of those domestic duties must pale beside
a gratifying boosted performance like Mr. Sex Machine!

What minor miscalculation wouldn’t
she forgive—the compliment paid too late,
socks left in the living room, the cable bill
overdue again—if only I could lead her

into a world of boundless enjoyments,
where my splinter will be bigger and more solid,
where excellent hardness is easy and I
can stay real man even being drunk.

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