Bayleigh Fraser

SO LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ONE NIGHT STANDS

Inevitably, there are penises

hanging from conversations about love.

Over the phone, our wires of words dangle above

what we mean.

He put his you-know-what

you-know-where. It was electric.

Thousands of volts

seized my curvy body, but he couldn’t

pick up when I called. There’s a ghost in his pocket.

He left it. Vibrating through his bones.

A wire he couldn’t cut.

Couldn’t say

I don’t like when your legs curl around my head

like a sunset.

Fragments of orange light slicing

into another hemisphere of feeling. That is

what the night is like.

The morning after stands still, tight

with presumed coffee and chatter. No, he won’t say it, won’t say

it’s not you but it’s us.

We’re the penthouse door hung open

without asking for rent.

We think we own the whole neighborhood

with our freedom.

Outside,

the dildos dangle

from a power line. Watch the wind swing them without gentleness.

—Poets Respond

July 19, 2015

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Bayleigh Fraser: “After reading about phallic sex toys hanging from the power lines in Portland, I couldn’t resist the call of that imagery.” (website)