Poem: Post Mortem

Post Mortem

You enter my front door

a big-bear unmade-bed of a man

your boundaries bristling

ready to fend off the attack

of desire, the generous impulse

or the moment of grace.

Fear makes you stingy

It’s the boy in you who’s in charge now

The boy is awkward, uncomfortable with

The woman you have chosen

so you retreat behind the boy shield

that I cannot penetrate with my sex

my will, or my caring.

I’m too powerful for the boy,

and his anxiety congeals the hot blood of your desire

You are no match for the boy, either

You don’t know this, but I do.

I know the inaccessible come in many disguises,

yours the beguiling, impulsive, disheveled boy

eager to please, ready to disclose and reveal,

but afraid he won’t know where he stops and I begin.

Mother and father, both so distant, nurtured my radar for man-boys.

I always find them.

                                                             

                                                             by  Mirinda Kossoff