Call of the Klutz
Poem belatedly stuck behind a cut-tag because it's about our sexlife and my dad shouldn't read it. My poor mom-in-law already has; she suggests a rating system, as "this puts a whole new spin on parental guidance." Also I revised while I was at it. It's still a minor poem, just a slightly better minor poem.
The Call
Once, not long married and making love
in a Comfort Inn in Iowa, your head
hit the headboard at the moment of entering
and you flopped on top of me, slapping your forehead,
shouting Ow! In anti-climax we rolled together
into laughter, imagining our rustling stealth
ruined, what the next room
must guess, the whole glorious
absurdity of the two of us
mating. Later, that pain
became a tenderness between us,
and whenever you kicked me
in the knee, or even when hunched alone
at the bus stop spilling coffee,
you would tell how Klutzes call
from pit traps, slapped by branches –
in the deep woods, lonely as fireflies
how they howl -- Ow!
And the distant answer (echo?) Ow!
A shuffle in the undergrowth, a crash,
a crunch, they fumble towards the sound:
Ah! and Ow!Then from the nest
of ferns and and softer now: O ow, ow ow.
(version originally posted)
Once, not long married and making love
in a hotel in Iowa, you struck the headboard
at the moment of entering and flopped on top of me
and howled and then we rolled together
into laughter, imagining our rustling stealth ruined,
what the next room might guess, the whole glorious
absurdity of the two of us mating. Later, the whole thing
became a code of tenderness between us, pulled out whenever
you kicked me in the knee, or even when we sat together
drinking coffee – you would tell the tale, the forest where the Klutzes call
to their mates from pit traps, slapped by branches –
in the deep woods, lonely as fireflies how they howl Ow!
And the distant answer (echo?) Ow! A shuffle
in the undergrowth, a crash, a crunch, they fumble
towards the song: sound Ow, then Ow. Then from the nest
of ferns and and softer now: ow ow, ow ow.
________________
An extremely minor poem that works best read aloud. Maybe time to get an audioblog plug in? Or is everyone traumatized enough? (I recently had to have the acronym TMI explained to me.)
6 Comments
Yes—TMI! But very funny, all the same.
hee hee hee
This is adorable, a nice unaffectatious glance at sex. For poetic purposes it’s just the right amount of information, not explicit but enough to maintain interest. The repetition of Ow gets to be a bit much, especially with “sound Ow, then Ow” though. Maybe it’s because the repetition of Ow is concentrated at the end of the poem, and it would work better if it were introduced earlier in the poem.
Your dad-in-law also read it and thought it was MITIWTK but funny none the less.
not even acronymfinder.com can help me with that one …
weeps with laughter
You never see that kind of thing in the movies, do you?