XXXXXXX

PUSSY (After Adrienne Rich's Fox)


I needed pussy badly
but for the long time
none had come near me
I craved to feel
her pelt and needed
fierce and sacrificial tail

I needed history of pussy recognition
from a triangulated face
but I settled for
sixteen volumes of
poetry and four books
of nonfiction prose
translated into German Spanish
Swedish Dutch Hebrew Greek
Italian and Japanese

Numerous awards fellowships
and prizes including the
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize
for Poetry the Fund for Human Dignity
Award of the National Gay Task Force
The Lambda Book Award
the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
for Poetry the National Book Award
The Poet’s Prize the
MacArthur Fellowship
and most recently
The Dorothea Tanning Prize of the
Academy of American Poets and
The Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award

Now I'm nominated again
for a National Book Award
but I don't need another prize
I have run through briars of legend
come a long way down
and I am in want of pussy