Dale Champlin

I think I should have loved you presently

–after Edna St. Vincent Millay

Better yet, I should have loved you unflaggingly,
‌‌           instead of beating you with words harsh as bone.
‌ ‌                    Lavender night, a strong house looms for all to see,
melancholy rooms. I clutch your hand to atone;
‌          to dazzle you, all my pretty flung foibles drape
‌                    a shawl, or shroud—your hair, your dress undone,
you trip, stripped of innocence and shorn of escape,
‌          up to the attic through a skylight darkly spun
‌                    eleven stars caught by a black-branched tree spill
in silver moonlit slashes—a metaphysical dream—
‌          only to halt and falter until, hot animal breath
‌                    bears down—a sudden scream—ghost in marble
‌                              oh melancholy girl
‌          you who I would have kissed—yesterday or this.
‌                              Delicious wildness.
A warbler drinking from my wineglass strikes
‌          its wings against the stem—the pressure point
‌                    of my pulse. My ardent arms embrace you,
you swoon—too soon—reflected in the pier mirror
‌          laddering up the whitewashed wall.
‌                    The goblet shatters.

Sex-couplet Ghazal

Your gleaming eyes spark across my shining-sky sex—
your hips, your thighs, your kiss are my learning to fly sex.

I see you in naked moonlight and stare like a fool.
My flower melts in your sweat—my learning to cry sex.

Every time I fall, I spout hidden thoughts I should not say.
I explore your dips and gullies in spite of my shy sex.

You gather me into your fist while I smolder,
You—both my despair and my addiction-high sex.

Yet you remain a treasure tucked under my pillow,
I would gladly make this night, this lifetime-entire my sex.

Oh but wake up and get up, Dale! Such thrills sting.
Without your touch another woman would surely buy sex.

Dale Champlin is an Oregon poet and artist. Many of her poems have appeared in The Opiate, Timberline, Willawaw, Cirque, Triggerfish, and elsewhere. Dale’s poetry collections are: The Barbie Diaries, Callie Comes of Age, Isadora, and Andromina: A Stranger in America. A collection of poems about Medusa is forthcoming.