“The seed of generation, driven to perfect itself, driving deep into the woman’s body, driving to bring the future into being.” - J.M. Coatzee
Love, that ancient act—
this time
you play man, I’ll play woman
Join me in the game
the ones our grandparents played
and theirs before them
like they’ve done for millennia
before the written word
before bricks were sculpted
and caked with sunlight into cities
before the idea
of the seed planted in earth,
before the scythe, the plow, the ox
before our gods had names
in the time before memory
The man loved the woman
in fields and caves, by night fires,
under the embrace of trees, beneath sacred stars
sweetly, violently
the skin of humanity wandered valley and river
mounted crag and bluff
to merge with itself
Our great-great grandmothers, grandfathers
before they shriveled, hollowed,
bent and blanched
before color departed their flesh
and left them as pale shadows
and their eyes went blank
before the aching and humiliation of age
the suffering and fear and suffering
They were full of life, like us
full of gold, ripe as fruit
yearning and lusting
joy appearing abruptly
with the meeting of mouths
the shock of the tongue twisting their bellies
did it always feel forbidden, this joy?
eyes shimmering like sunlight that ripples off the river
the limbs, the face, otherwise so ordinary
suddenly change their purpose
converting to instruments of ecstasy
So you grab me here, I’ll lick you there
let our mouths transform into caverns of passion
I’ll give you my essence, distilled
consume me, let me drink in your gaze
rapture
weeping from our eyes
radiating from our skin
in savage pulses
Why does the thought of your touch make my bones shudder? And the bones buried beneath my feet, under the stone cross, must have known this same shudder this fierce pleasure sweet unity this love between woman and man driving us forward into the next life.
