Flight to Catalina
On a darkening planet
speeding
toward our death,
we pierce a rosy cloud
& hit clean air,
we glide above
the red infernal smog,
we leave the mammon city
far behind.
Here - where the air is clear
as nothing,
where cactus pads
are prickly as stars,
where buffalo chips
are gilded by the sun
& the moon tastes like a peppermint-
we land.
'Have we flown to heaven?'
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poem by Erica Jong
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Parable Of The Four-Poster
Because she wants to touch him,
she moves away.
Because she wants to talk to him,
she keeps silent.
Because she wants to kiss him,
she turns away
& kisses a man she does not want to kiss.
He watches
thinking she does not want him.
He listens
hearing her silence.
He turns away
thinking her distant
& kisses a girl he does not want to kiss.
They marry each other -
A four-way mistake.
He goes to bed with his wife
thinking of her.
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poem by Erica Jong
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Sunjuice
What happens when the juice of the sun
drenches you
with its lemony tang, its tart sweetness
& your whole body stings with singing
so that your toes sing to your mouth
& your navel whistles to your breasts
& your breasts wave to everyone
as you walk down the summer street?
What will you do
when nothing will do
but to throw your arms around trees
& men
& greet every woman as sister
& to run naked in the spray of the fire hydrants
with children of assorted colors?
Will you cover your drenched skin
with woolen clothes?
Will you wear a diaper of herringbone tweed?
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poem by Erica Jong
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Anti-Conception
Could I unthink you,
little heart,
what would I do?
throw you out
with last night's garbage,
undo my own decisions,
my own flesh
& commit you to the void
again?
Fortunately,
it is not my problem.
You hold on, beating
like a little clock,
Swiss in your precision,
Japanese in your tenacity,
& already having
your own karma,
while I, with my half-
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poem by Erica Jong
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Gardener
I am in love with my womb
& jealous of it.
I cover it tenderly
with a little pink hat
(a sort of yarmulke)
to protect it from men.
Then I listen for the gentle ping
of the ovary:
a sort of cupid's bow
released.
I'm proud of that.
& the spot of blood
in the little hat
& the egg so small
I cannot see it
though I pray to it.
I imagine the inside
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poem by Erica Jong
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To Jon in October
Knowing our lives a drowse
towards death
(attended by dogs
& children)
how can it not matter
that I remember
(day after day)
that one day
we shall lose
each other,
lose the lights
in each other's eyes
to death,
& drift off
to other universes.
Love shall not save us
from being alone at the end,
& the daughter we made
in that fine high exuberance
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poem by Erica Jong
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The Dirty Laundry Poem
This is the dirty laundry poem-
because we have traveled from town to town
accumulating soiled linen & sweaty shirts
& blue-jeans caked & clotted with our juice
& teeshirts crumpled by our gloriously messy passion
& underwear made stiff by all our joy.
I have come home to wash my clothes.
They patter on the bathroom floor like rain.
The water drips away the days till you.
The dirty water speaks to me of love.
Steamy in the bubbles of our love,
I have plunged my hands into hot water
as I might plunge them
in your heart.
After years of spots & splatters,
I am finally coming clean.
I will fly to you with a suitcase of fresh laundry,
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poem by Erica Jong
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Living Happily Ever After
We used to strike sparks
off each other.
Our eyes would meet
or our hands,
& the blue lightning of love
would sear the air.
Now we are soft.
We loll
in the same sleepy bed,
skin of my skin,
hair of my head,
sweat of my sweat-
you are kin,
brother & mother
all in one,
husband, lover, muse & comforter;
I love you even better
without sparks.
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poem by Erica Jong
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The Surgery of the Sea
At the furthermost reach of the sea
where Atlantis sinks under the wake of the waves,
I have come to heal my life.
I knit together like a broken arm.
The salt fills the crevices of bone.
The sea takes all the fragments of my lives
& grinds them home.
I wake up in a waterbed with you.
The sea is singing & my skin
sings against your skin.
The waves are all around us & within.
We sleep stuck to each other's salt.
I am healing in your arms.
I am leaning to write without the loss of love.
I am growing deeper lungs here by the sea.
The waves are knives; they glitter & cut clean.
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poem by Erica Jong
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To Whom It May Concern
In Autumn,
as in Spring,
the sap flows,
the sap wishes to race
against heartbeats
before the winter,
before the winter
buries us
in her usual shroud of ice.
I turn to you
knowing that
unrequited love
is good
for poetry,
knowing that pain
will nudge the muse
as well as anything,
knowing that you
are afraid, fettered
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poem by Erica Jong
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