When a man you like a lot, and want
a lot, looks in your eyes, and then down
your body and up again—there is a wash
of hot, thick weakness that rushes
down, pulling in its wake the desire to lie
down and be lain down upon in the
slow dance which breaks our bond
with time and separateness.
On the porch, in the company of his family,
from my eye’s corner, like the point of a cow-over-the
moon horn, I look at his hand
folding and unfolding the table mat,
outer gates, inner gates,
outer lips, inner lips,
and desire, pours, down, through me,
back into the gene pool, the treasure box
of supplies for birth and death, the old
fresh jewel-box. There was one on my bureau
throughout my apprenticeship as a human
woman. When it was shut, the dancer
was pressed, face down, inside it,
bowing, and when it was open she rose up,
turning to music—
and today the ballerina is moving, again.
She is twirling, her gaze sweeping the circumference of
her wholeness, her eye red as a crying loon’s.
—Sharon Olds
Sharold Olds’s debut poetry collection, Satan Says, has been reissued in a 45th anniversary edition by the University of Pittsburgh Press.