Fading (post of an earlier poem I still like)

Celibate for longer than
Rip Van Winkle's nap,
Sara dreams in technicolor,
breasts firm like freshly scooped ice-cream,
and go-on-forever legs wrapped around
some sexy man's waist.
Sean Connery maybe, or
Denzel Washington.
She wonders if sex works like
heartbeats in animals, if
she used up her quota in her
too many men too little time
communal days.
She remembers when her face
blazed a fire in men's hearts.
Between their legs, too.
Now she's forgotten what an orgasm
feels like with a man still inside her.
She climbs out of bed, puts on her
Give Bush a Blow Job PLEASE sweatshirt,
joins other graying ex-hippie
women who wander the streets
and coffee shops after midnight,
minds still alert and longing,
bodies fading like ghosts
between every streetlight.


Pris Campbell
©2006


Published in MEAT, a semi-regular broadside by S.A. Griffin, co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

Republished in Empowerment4Women, June2008