Kamasutra for Dummies
by Marge Piercy
Years ago I had a lover who got bored.
He liked a challenge. I was
too easily pleased to fluff his ego.
He bought a manual. We would
work our way through the positions.
Work is the operant word. I remember
his horny toenails and ripe feet
either side of my eyes and cheeks.
I remember arching my back
like a cat, the ache just looming.
In some positions his prick slipped
out every other stroke and he would
curse. It was sensual as those videos
to flatten your abs or firm your buttocks
where three young women whose abs
are flat as floorboards grin like rigor
mortis as they demonstrate some
overpriced 800 number device.
They never sweat. But we did.
We used chairs. And tables and stools.
Always the manual was open beside us
guiding our calisthenics. Spontaneous
as a presidential speech, exciting
as a lecture on actuarial tables
he staked my quivering libido through
its smoking heart. The night he wanted
to try it standing with me upsidedown
I left him hanging from the door
and whoosh zoomed off like a rabid bat
to find someone who actually liked sex.
Copyright © 2002 by Marge Piercy. This poem is part
of the collection Colors Passing Through Us by Marge Piercy, to
be published by Knopf in March 2003.
