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Page 108

Our bodies are possessive lovers, demanding
our complete devotion. That's why they tremble so
at taking the terrible chance of letting us
touch one another. It's the only way they know
to create more bodies, so they risk our discovering
one another and finding allegiances beyond bodies
to keep their own game going.

That's what it's all about, our bodies haranguing us,
FUCK! PROCREATE! BE FRUITFUL AND
MULTIPLY! (A bed is a multiplication table.)

And when, together, we escape them, contain them,
move to and away from them freely in one another,
playing tag with flesh, fascinated that it can be part of
what is so little a part of it -- then our bodies
ape us clumsily (damage control), say, Look!
Sex! A neat way to join one another,
interpenetrate, be one! THAT'S what has you
walking on clouds! So to make it happen again
whenever you want, fuck! Procreate!

And here I am in my little engine-that-can,
puffing arduously up your hill (I THINK I can,
I THINK I can, I THINK I CAN...), and you,
in yours down there chuff-a-puff,
WHAMPaWHAMPaWHAMP!

Oh, this is impossible, my body can't be
your body! Do your nerves tingle the same
tingle my nerves tingle? Is it good for you too?

Note: Stanza 3 – "fascinated that it can be part of what is so little a part of it" – that is, spiritual beings fascinate that bodies can be part of (share the space of) spiritual beings that are so little a part of flesh" – with "so little a part of" suggesting something being a small part of (flesh having some small spiritual component), but also not being to any great extent a part of flesh or having, innately, much to do with flesh. The point is that the very perception of oneself as NOT being chained to a body adds a certain fascination to body games. In stanza 4 that detached sense of self as not body has vanished, and sex becomes a failed effort to regain it. And the strong communication (which was between beings, not bodies) diminishes, so that (as in stanza 5) men think women are impossible to understand and vice versa, and much of sex becomes a pre-occupation with mechanics – "Am I rubbing the right spot? Does she really enjoy this? I hope I can get off. I hope she has an orgasm. Etc."

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