This is the sad bed
of chosen chastity
because you are miles
& mountains away,
over canyons, under jet-streams,
where the cirrus clouds streak
from east to west,
& the cumulus clouds
copulate to spite us,
& the hard cock of the wind thrashes
the bellies of planes.

We are not in flight,
& we sigh on our sad beds.
Three thousand miles apart
but memorized in each other's eyes & hips,
so full of each other,
we are empty to the world.

I could find a cock to fill me,
but it would never make me fly.
You could find a cunt to clutch you
but you would not cry
& bite her shoulder
wanting entrance to her blood.

So instead the whole country is a bed
in which we lie on opposite coasts
divided by the obdurate mountains
of our obstinate love,
& wishing for an earthquake
to shake the continent
& collapse us into each other.

© Erica Mann Jong

Read more poems by Erica Jong