BARBARA JOAN SCHAFFER: If It Weren’t For Sex

IF IT WEREN’T FOR SEX

If it weren’t for sex
I would disconnect,
if I didn’t know
what a man can do.
If I didn’t know desire
– body mimicking mind –
desire for connection
finding relief in the flesh.

I am not empty but full with myself.
I desire a man who is filled with himself,
a man who can defend himself,
who knows the difference between
a challenge and a threat.
The lacey panties on the bedsheet,
the sweat, the arcane practice
of the rite of sex where the body mimics
the rapture of mind.

The barriers that must be surmounted
as we ride with the hunt in rural Virginia.
Oh, my life has been some frolic,
a cheerful jaunt in the woods!

The pain is gone; I have outlived it.
Suddenly I am old.
Youth is tears. Babies cry all the time.
It begins when a balloon pops and we don’t cry.
With time we become hard, unfeeling,
accustomed to pain and disappointment
like the nose to scent.

Love hurts more now.
There’s so much more to love
in a person at a certain age
and so much more to hurt.

For the sake of argument, let’s say love is a game.
Win-win, lose-lose or the alternative
win-lose, lose-win.
Some men love to prove themselves,
to win a woman and then let her go
once her job is done.
I refuse to believe that I am complicit.
What does it mean to rise to a challenge?
Co-evolution — a man and a woman
shaping their behavior to meet
the expectation of the other
whom we hope will meet
our expectation.

As long as I am in the business
of conjuring you up,
I ask what kind of man takes his pleasure
with a woman so easily dominated,
who being enthralled uses her wits
to escape and enthrall?
We will not conquer –
not you, not I.
We will collaborate,
my eyes lighting your path,
your eyes mine -
two people on the same path
until they diverge.

To say we love for the wrong reason
is to deny the reason for love.
What if my lover doesn’t understand me,
mistakes me for someone else?
Or I the same?
New love is rife with misconceptions,
each affair an abortion. No, not that!
Each affair shines its light
into the world. The fire of passion
lights up the world.
Another person’s happiness affirms
the possibility of fulfillment,
no matter its transience.

The body mimics the mind
in the depths of its desire
crude, demanding
infantile.
What is as pure and copious as
the tears of the jilted lover?

We spent time together,
time the measure of the path,
time on mountains and in dark valleys
that aren’t measured on any maps.
The distance between being too easily frustrated
and patience has not been established.

I have diversified my portfolio–
castles in the sand, gold in the sea.
I measure my losses to my gains,
because I am not insensible to pain
I am still a player, still in the game.

 

Barbara Joan Schaffer is the author of Objects in the Rear View Mirror (Palo Alto: Tabor Sarah Books) ISBN 0-935079-20-3. Her work can be found at http://www.barbaraschaffer.com/. barscha@speakeasy.net