Untitled Poem
–Alan Dugan

Why feel guilty because the death of a lover causes lust?

It is only an animal urge to perpetuate the species,

but if I do not inhibit my imagination and dreams

I can see your skull smiling up at me from underground

and your bones loosely arranged in the missionary position.

This is not an incapacitating vision except at night,

and not a will of constancy, nor an irrevocable trust,

so I take on a woman with a mouth like an open wound.

I would do almost anything to avoid your teeth in the dirt.

She is desirable, loving, and definite, but when I feel her up

I hesitate: I still feel the site of your absence. It is

as large as the silence of your invitational smile

or the vacancy open in the cage of your ribs. Fuck that,

I say. Why be guilty for this guilt? It’s only birth control.

Therefore I extend my hands tongue and prick to you

through her as substitutions for the rest of my body

in hopes that you’ll be born again as her daughter

before I have to join you as your permanent husband,

but I know you: you want me to come, come as I am,

right now, without her, and to bring along a son.