pantoum's Diaryland Diary

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SHOCKING THE MARROW ALIVE IN HUNGRY BONES

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Olga Broumas

For years I fantasized pain
driving, driving
me over each threshold
I thought I had, till finally
the joy in my flesh would break
loose with the terrible
strain, and undulate
in great spasmic circles, centered
in cunt and heart. I clung to pain

because, as a drunk
and desperate boy once said, stumbling from the party
into the kitchen and the two
women there, "Pain
is the only reality." I rolled
on the linoleum with mirth, too close
to his desperation to understand, much less
to help. Years

of that reality. Pain the link
to existence: pinch your own tissue, howl
yourself from sleep. But that night was too soon
after passion
had shocked the marrow alive in my hungry bones. The boy
fled from my laughter
painfully, and I
leaned and touched, leaned
and touched you, mesmerized, woman, stunned

by the tangible
pleasure that gripped my ribs, every time
like a caged beast, bewildered
by this late, this essential heat.

I am a poet who is fascinated with pain. Simple pain—a paper cut, a smashed knuckle—or complex pain—there behind that long, jagged breath behind that long slow lick that feels so exquisite that you are sucking in your breath even now and gasping, as I hold you taut and your nerve endings quiver and you are suspended there, my tongue on your clavicle, your lifeline ...

10:19 a.m. - 2005-06-10

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