GETTING SPANKED BY DONNY OSMOND

I never understood Sonny and Cher
her skinny arms twisted around his torso
like trash bag ties
him curled up on her like a mink stole.
How could they get all the essentials
lined up for sex —
physicists still haven't figured it out.
Quantum mechanics makes more sense
than those two.
But they were sure better
than Donny and Marie.
Marie's thick ankles made her walk
as if three or four bones in each foot
had gone missing
behind the racks of petite costumes
lining her dressing room walls
and someone had splinted her up
just long enough to clop rigidly
across the stage
with that phony Pearl Drops smile.
And Donny, pretending to be
a little bit rock 'n roll
in his three-piece powder-blue suit
his starched wide-lapel polyester shirt
tucked neatly inside.
From time to time I imagined
the two of us making it.
Who wants to admit to such tastes?
He had Marie's side-swept bangs after all
and dressed like tacky furniture
in a psychiatrist's waiting room.
What really made those fantasies
problematic were his slim, girlish
waistline and platform shoes.
To this day, I can't shake
the image of him spanking me
with one of his wide silver-lamé belts.

TO ALL THE POETS I'VE SLEPT WITH

I've taken each and every one of you to bed
without your expressed or implied permission.
How is it possible, you ask, for me to hold you
to my chest, get lost with you in the sheets night after night

without your expressed or implied permission?
All I can say is, it was unsafe. It was reckless to have you
at my chest, get lost with you in the sheets night after night
and I would do it again in a heartbeat, but I will

say it twice: It was unsafe and reckless to have you,
Nick, John, Anne and Anne, James, Linda, Elizabeth.
I would do it again in a heartbeat, and will.
Don't think that was an exhaustive list:

There have been the Richards, Sharon, Pablo, Andrew
and Charles who afterward careened off the bed where he lay silent.
Don't you find the list exhausting?
I can tell you all are getting jealous of each other.

(I swore off Charles who, after careening off the bed where he lay silent,
rose with a great fistful of words when I reached for him.
I could tell he was getting jealous, like he did with all the girls
who found the tender spots beneath his hard skin.)

You all rise with great mouths full of words every time I come for you.
How is it possible, you ask, for me to hold you?
To let you find your way to my tender spots? I'll whisper it again
when I take each and every one of you to bed.

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Tag: Dana Guthrie Martin