After the Earthquake
After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .
After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. . .
I find you still
here beside me in bed,
(while my pen scratches the pad
& your skin glows as you read)
& my whole life so mellowed & changed
that at times I cannot remember
the crimp in my heart that brought me to you,
the pain of a marriage like an old ache,
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poem by Erica Jong
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At the Museum of Natural History
The lessons we learned here
(fumbling with our lunchbags,
handkerchiefs
& secret cheeks of bubblegum)
were graver than any
in the schoolroom:
the dangers of a life
frozen into poses.
Trilobites in their
petrified ghettos,
lumbering dinosaurs
who'd outsized themselves
told how nature was
an endless morality play
in which the cockroach
(& all such beadyeyed
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poem by Erica Jong
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My Love Is Too Much
My love is too much-
it embarrasses you-
blood, poems, babies,
red needs that telephone
from foreign countries,
black needs that spatter
the pages
of your white papery heart.
You would rather have a girl
with simpler needs:
lunch, sex, undemanding
loving,
dinner, wine, bed,
the occasional blow-job
& needs that are never
red as gaping wounds
but cool & blue
as television screens
in tract houses.
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poem by Erica Jong
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Walking Through the Upper East Side
All over the district, on leather couches
& brocade couches, on daybeds
& 'professional divans,' they are confessing.
The air is thick with it,
the ears of analysts must be sticky.
Words fill the air above couches & hover there
hanging like smog. I imagine
impossible Steinberg scrolls,
unutterable sounds suspended in inked curlicues
while the Braque print & the innocuous Utrillo
look on look on look on.
My six analysts for example-
the sly Czech who tucked his shoelaces
under the tongues of his shoes,
the mistress of social work with orange hair,
the famous old german who said:
'You sink, zerefore you are,'
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poem by Erica Jong
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Anti-Matter
I am not interested
in my body-
the part that stinks
& rots & brings forth
life,
the part that the ground
swallows,
death giving birth
to death-
all of life,
considered
from the body's
point of view,
is a downhill slide
& all our small
preservatives
& griefs
cannot reverse the trend.
All sensualists
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poem by Erica Jong
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I Sit At My Desk Alone
I sit at my desk alone
as I did on many Sunday
afternoons when you came
back to me,
your arms aching for me,
though they smelled
of other women
and your sweet head bowed
for me to rub
and your heart bursting
with things to tell me,
and your hair
and your eyes
wild.
We would embrace
on the carpet
and leave
the imprint of our bodies
on the floor.
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poem by Erica Jong
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For an Earth-Landing
the sky sinks its blue teeth
into the mountains.
Rising on pure will
(the lurch & lift-off,
the sudden swing
into wide, white snow),
I encourage the cable.
Past the wind
& crossed tips of my skis
& the mauve shadows of pines
& the spoor of bears
& deer,
I speak to my fear,
rising, riding,
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poem by Erica Jong
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The Man Under the Bed
The man under the bed
The man who has been there for years waiting
The man who waits for my floating bare foot
The man who is silent as dustballs riding the darkness
The man whose breath is the breathing of small white butterflies
The man whose breathing I hear when I pick up the phone
The man in the mirror whose breath blackens silver
The boneman in closets who rattles the mothballs
The man at the end of the end of the line
I met him tonight I always meet him
He stands in the amber air of a bar
When the shrimp curl like beckoning fingers
& ride through the air on their toothpick skewers
When the ice cracks & I am about to fall through
he arranges his face around its hollows
he opens his pupilless eyes at me
For years he has waited to drag me down
& now he tells me
he has only waited to take me home
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poem by Erica Jong
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Woman Enough
Because my grandmother's hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.
Because my mother's minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
I send out my laundry,
& live in a dusty house,
though really I like clean houses
as well as anyone.
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poem by Erica Jong
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The Fork To Take
I had pegged you as
protégé, adoptee,
someone I could save.
The last thing
I needed
was
another lover.
You call yourself
'an accident
looking
for a place
to happen.'
I call you
my sweet, my love,
not only
because you carry knives
for me
& want to beat up
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