WRITTEN + EDITED BY MEL KARTAL

This year-long quarantine has deprived us of most, if not all human contact. It has sucked every last droplet of romance in our veins dry, and has left us all in a large, fleshy heap of depressed skin and bones… For some, this feeling has been around since the beginning of time. For others, romance and intimacy are a taboo, something shameful. But despite any societal pressure, or any single person telling you that what you’re feeling is wrong, there will always be that visceral feeling of longing within every human, no matter how hard you try to suppress it. But all is not lost. Here are a couple of poems that may remind you: with absence, the heart does indeed grow fonder.

—

Little Beast

BY RICHARD SIKEN

4

He had green eyes,

so I wanted to sleep with him—

green eyes flecked with yellow, dried leaves on the surface of a pool-

You could drown in those eyes, I said.

The fact of his pulse,

the way he pulled his body in, out of shyness or shame or a desire

not to disturb the air around him.

Everyone could see the way his muscles worked,

the way we look like animals,

his skin barely keeping him inside.

I wanted to take him home

and rough him up and get my hands inside him, drive my body into his

like a crash test car.

I wanted to be wanted and he was

very beautiful, kissed with his eyes closed, and only felt good while moving.

You could drown in those eyes, I said,

so it’s summer, so it’s suicide,

so we’re helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.

—

One Girl

BY SAPPHO

TRANSLATED BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

                                I

Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,

Atop on the topmost twig, — which the pluckers forgot, somehow, —

Forget it not, nay; but got it not, for none could get it till now.

                               II

Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,

Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,

Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.

—

Mayakovsky

BY FRANK O’HARA

1

My heart’s aflutter!

I am standing in the bath tub

crying. Mother, mother

who am I? If he

will just come back once

and kiss me on the face

his coarse hair brush

my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes

I guess, and walk the streets.

2

I love you. I love you,

but I’m turning to my verses

and my heart is closing

like a fist.

Words! be

sick as I am sick, swoon,

roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare down

at my wounded beauty

which at best is only a talent

for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win

what a poet!

and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.

I embrace a cloud,

but when I soared

it rained.

3

That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest

oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks

what a funny place to rupture!

and now it is raining on the ailanthus

as I step out onto the window ledge

the tracks below me are smoky and

glistening with a passion for running

I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

4

Now I am quietly waiting for

the catastrophe of my personality

to seem beautiful again,

and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and

brown and white in trees,

snows and skies of laughter

always diminishing, less funny

not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of

the year, what does he think of

that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,

perhaps I am myself again.

—

For Willyce

BY PAT PARKER

When i make love to you

i try

with each stroke of my tongue

to say

i love you

to tease

i love you

to hammer

i love you

to melt

i love you

and your sounds drift down

oh god!

oh jesus!

and i think

here it is, some dude’s

getting credit for what

a woman

has done

again.

—