The Poetry of Sex by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online Page A

in the breeze, dialect thick on your
    lips, saliva stringing between us. Please,
    please. I smile and your eyes roll back
    with the receding grasp of breakers.
    You’re no longer making any sense
    to me; something like Old Norse
    retches in your throat as the hot rush
    releases you. Afterwards you mutter faintly,
    half-metre, near rhyme, kissing my neck as your
    poems seep away into the shingle.

Punctuation
Claire Dyer
    We’re making love and there’s a comma on your shoulder.
    It’s shining in the dark –
    part pause, part the start of separation.
    Question marks are in your eyes.
    I have no answer other than to press my lips
    to your neck and feel you smile.
    This moment’s stolen, we’re living in quotation marks.
    Next you touch me with apostrophes –
    silky on my skin, they brush my breasts with belonging.
    I arch my back, our release is an exclamation.
    Afterwards, the sheet’s littered with semicolons,
    colons, there are hyphens between our toes
    and we speak ellipsis, promise each other
    a lexicon without a word for grief, or any full stop –

On being in Bed with Your Brand-new Lover
Amy Key
    I’ve abandoned vanity, since I became a body
    of threads, never quite made, since you rippled
    the apparent skin of me.
    I’m all texture. Silk rosette, billowing coral,
    tentative as a just baked cake. Sensations
    slide over my knitted blood.
    My mouth is a glass paperweight
    to keep our tastes in, like maraschino
    cherries and water from a zinc cup.

The Platonic Blow (A Day for a Lay)
W. H. Auden
    It was a spring day, a day, a day for a lay when the air
    Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown.
    Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
    On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.
    I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
    A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
    Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
    I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.
    Our eyes met, I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
    I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
    In a blur I heard words myself like a stranger speak.
    ‘Will you come to my room?’ Then a husky voice, ‘O.K.’
    I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
    He told me his story. Present address next door.
    Half Polish half Irish The youngest. From Illinois.
    Profession mechanic. Name Bud. Age twenty-four.
    He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
    The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
    The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong,
    His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.
    And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
    I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
    His reply was to move closer. I trembled. My heart
    Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.
    I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
    I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
    Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh then to hair,
    I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.
    He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
    Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt
    And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
    Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.
    The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft,
    With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
    And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
    Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate
    Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
    It lay there inert then suddenly stirred in my hand,
    Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do,
    And then with a violent jerk began to expand.
    By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
    Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
    Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
    A royal column ineffably solemn and wise.
    I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze,
    I bunched my fingers and