First turn to me after a shower, you come inside me sideways as always in the morning you ask me to be on top of you, then we take a nap, we’re late for school you arrive at night inspired and drunk, there is no reason for our clothes we take a bath and lie down facing each other, then later we turn over, finally you come we face each other and talk about childhood as soon as I touch your penis I wind up coming you stop by in the morning to say hello we sit on the bed indian fashion not touching in the middle of the night you come home from a nightclub, we don’t get past the bureau next day it’s the table, and after that the chair because I want so much to sit you down & suck your cock you ask me to hold your wrists, but then when I touch your neck with both my hands you come it’s early morning and you decide to very quietly come on my knee because of the children you’ve been away at school for centuries, your girlfriend has left you, you come four times before morning you tell me you masturbated in the hotel before you came by I don’t believe it, I serve the lentil soup naked I massage your feet to seduce you, you are reluctant, my feet wind up at your neck and ankles you try not to come too quickly also, you dont want to have a baby I stand up from the bath, you say turn around and kiss the backs of my legs and my ass you suck my cunt for a thousand years, you are weary at last I remember my father’s anger and I come you have no patience and come right away I get revenge and won’t let you sleep all night we make out for so long we can’t remember how we wound up hitting our heads against the wall I lie on my stomach, you put one hand under me and one hand over me and that way can love me you appear without notice and with flowers I fall for it and we become missionaries you say you can only fuck me up the ass when you are drunk so we try it sober in a room at the farm we lie together one night, exhausted couplets and don’t make love. does this mean we’ve had enough? watching t.v. we wonder if each other wants to interrupt the plot; later I beg you to read to me like the Chinese we count 81 thrusts then 9 more out loud till we both come I come three times before you do and then it seems you’re mad and never will it’s only fair for a woman to come more think of all the times they didn’t care
From A Bernadette Mayer Reader by Bernadette Mayer, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1968 by Bernadette Mayer. Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.