Whereupon I Finally Understand the Allure of the Pornographic
                                                                                                                                 —Devon Balwit
 

Klimt’s nude’s bush calls
the tongue, with a higgledy-
piggledy spill of the spice rack,
the tang of a copper penny.
Legs splayed, she looks spent.
Whether I plunge into her
frothy boa or knuckle deep
in cunt is all the same to her;
her curves are paid for, thigh
and navel charcoal roundabouts
engineered for the busy traffic
of my gaze. I want to set my hands
atop the artist’s as he steers
the slopes of her pudenda.
Bothered, I busy my hips
then repair to white space.


(after Gustav Klimt, Lying Female Nude, Vienna,1914–15)
 


East Egg


Ever the wide-eyed ingénue, I thrum to louche.
Tom Buchanan’s bulk hulks over me, pricked

by tittering from unlit corners, ice rattling
cocktail shakers, smoke in my nostrils.

He invited me here, and I came, already wet,
trailing him like fingers through condensation.

Daisy laughs, knowing what he is beneath skin.
Later, I’ll swear I also knew but didn’t care.

Anything to shuck corset and slip
into a flappers’ insouciance, and, top down,

feel the rush of wind. Later, chastened
and headachy, I’ll stack vows like unread novels

by my bedside. Anyone can fetch and obey.
Even briefly, I wanted claws.
 

Devon Balwit

Devon Balwit teaches/parents in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. She has six chapbooks and three collections out in the world. Her individual poems can be found or are forthcoming in journals such as The Cincinnati Review, apt, Posit, The Inflectionist Review, The Free State Review. See her website for more.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2018