Sonnet 57 / The Affair That Turned Into a Poem (Cindy Hochman)

Sonnet 57
Being your slave what should I do but tend
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world without end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

The Affair That Turned Into a Poem
I wanted you to follow me home and bury yourself under my skin for awhile like a subcutaneous lover and so I jackhammered your sacred door and gave you my stain-glassed lips dripping with wine and erotica, and pressed them, with precision, against your cold shoulder. I even bled poetry for you through every pore, wrapped myself around you like a bold-colored sheet, and then this tiny gymnast, unbound, filled with a little girl's innocent lust, almost jumping-jacked her crystal-thin body onto your well-settled lap and did a pole-vault over your head - - but they were all Olympian failures, summer-assaults, you responded with an apprehensive affirmative, just the hint of a heartbeat, a backwards smile, callused hands and callous kisses around the province of my breasts and heart, and I never asked for rings or rainbows, I was content to be your plaster-of-paris elevator friend and basement lover and darling, I would have parted the C for you.

The Affair That Turned Into a Poem © Cindy Hochman (used with permission)
Originally published in The Ever Dancing Muse