What better way to launch the very first issue of CORVUS than with a piece by one of Poetry Gabriola's founding members, Naomi Beth Wakan? We are delighted to include this excerpt from Sex after 70 - one of her seminal works. Thanks for everything, Naomi!
-ed
Sex after 70
I sit across
from my publisher
who cuddles his coffee
and explodes with "What!"
"I'm writing a book on haiku,"
I repeat calmly.
"On haiku!" his face a-red.
"Why can't you write
something people want to read
like "Fishing On The West Coast?"
"Or Sex after 70" I counter.
"Yes, Sex after 70,"
his eyes switch from
exasperated to hopeful,
"Now there's a promising title!"
We both fall silent.
I imagine he is weighing up
the odds of me being informed
on the subject, while I
do a quick survey of
a possible table of contents.
Sex and osteoarthritis -
the joints locking
in positions unheard of
in the Kama-Sutra.
Choices - orgasm or muscle cramp;
whether to allow myself
the pleasure of orgasm
or go into the pain
of a concurrent foot cramp.
Whether to focus on the vagina
and the blissful dissolving
or the foot and get that spasm
dealt with and those
toes straightened out.
Decisions, decisions and
before I know it I am
thinking of nouns...
those nouns of haiku
and how each noun
condenses a universe
and packs a wallop
and how two, or three nouns
together, if carefully chosen,
can tumble you into the void
and to Universes beyond,
and how the pause, the pause
at the 5th or 12th syllable
opens so many possibilities
to dwarf all orgasms, or cramps
come to that, and transforms
dark crows on bare branches
into cockatoos on plum blossom.
"I'm writing the book on haiku"
I firmly address my publisher
across the steam of his coffee.
He sighs, takes a sip and asks,
"When's the first draft ready?"
© Naomi Beth Wakan 2010