Up late watching slug porn, you confess
you had a boyfriend who could spin you
like that, slug grace and slug ballet — we don’ t
touch the topic of slime — and those eyes
dangling from tentacle tips must be a
kind of love or lust, sighting farther and
nearer all at once. (But are those eyes?)
Slug sublimity suggests love’ s a drag,
touch that lingers and leaves a wet trail of
memory and... What did we do before
YouTube? Boob tube. Boobs we have none; slugs,
of course, don’ t care, can’ t tell girl from boy,
(being, you know, hermaphrodites), and only
want flesh to fly. Forget their infamous
languor — here’ s litheness in loving, buoyant
miracles of want, one slug spiraling
on the axis of another like a globe
slapped by an insolent hand. Neither old
nor young, we’ re familiar with sluggishness,
too tired to explain why nothing makes us
spin like that: a-swirl, a pirouette, a gyre!
It’ s either fucking or marriage, I say,
saying more than I mean. Why can’ t lust be
love and love be lust? you’ re always asking,
even now as the slugs begin their sluggish
withdrawal — each complete in love and lust;
each mother and father to what they’ ve made
together; each alone, content, and free.