Two Songs

 -Adrienne Rich

1.

 

Sex, as they harshly call it,

 

I fell into this morning

 

at ten o'clock, a drizzling hour

 

of traffic and wet newspapers.

 

I thought of him who yesterday

 

clearly didn't

 

turn me to a hot field

 

ready for plowing,

 

and longing for that young man

 

pierced me to the roots

 

bathing every vein, etc.

 

All day he appears to me

 

touchingly desirable,

 

a prize one could wreck one's peace for.

 

I'd call it love if love

 

didn't take so many years

 

but lust too is a jewel

 

a sweet flower and what

 

pure happiness to know

 

all our high-toned questions

 

breed in a lively animal.

 

 

 

2.

 

That "old last act"!

 

And yet sometimes

 

all seems post coitum triste

 

and I a mere bystander.

 

Somebody else is going off,

 

getting shot to the moon.

 

Or a moon-race!

 

Split seconds after

 

my opposite number lands

 

I make it--

 

we lie fainting together

 

at a crater-edge

 

heavy as mercury in our moonsuits

 

till he speaks--

 

in a different language

 

yet one I've picked up

 

through cultural exchanges...

 

we murmur the first moonwords:

 

Spasibo. Thanks. O.K.