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What Men Want
Poetry. "In WHAT MEN WANT, Laura McCullough elbows Sigmund Freud and winks. Her poems are witty and barbed, but they are also tender, full of candor, echoing James Wright. This is a book of audacious love poems, gutsy pronouncements, accounts of unabashed desire. McCullough crisscrosses personal accounts and societal expectations--she is a bombshell dropping bombshells"--Denise Duhamel.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 27, 2012
My favorite poem:
--Cicatrix
I remember the scars on his body
were a kind of topography
of his grief and shame--how he got them,
his story--mine, the way they felt
under the soles of my feet
against his chest or my chin in his hands
It was the whole left side of his torso
to the neck line and both of his hands;
I couldn't help--even then,
young and stupid--loving them,
more so because you just had to know
he hated them for what he thought
they revealed or, maybe, obscured.
What a surprise it would be,
if he were still living, to find
years later that we not only learn to live
with imperfections, learn to adore them
in those we love, we get to a place
where we'd pay someone, anyone to:
Please, please look at me--
It was open heart surgery;
I was riding a bike with no hands;
He stabbed me with a cheese knife;
A bird pecked my eye--
Can you believe that?
I can't see clearly out of it,
but doesn't it look like a marble
straight out of one of those Cracker Jack boxes
from when we were kids? The swirls,
people tell me the swirls make it look
like the earth looks from the sky.
--Cicatrix
I remember the scars on his body
were a kind of topography
of his grief and shame--how he got them,
his story--mine, the way they felt
under the soles of my feet
against his chest or my chin in his hands
It was the whole left side of his torso
to the neck line and both of his hands;
I couldn't help--even then,
young and stupid--loving them,
more so because you just had to know
he hated them for what he thought
they revealed or, maybe, obscured.
What a surprise it would be,
if he were still living, to find
years later that we not only learn to live
with imperfections, learn to adore them
in those we love, we get to a place
where we'd pay someone, anyone to:
Please, please look at me--
It was open heart surgery;
I was riding a bike with no hands;
He stabbed me with a cheese knife;
A bird pecked my eye--
Can you believe that?
I can't see clearly out of it,
but doesn't it look like a marble
straight out of one of those Cracker Jack boxes
from when we were kids? The swirls,
people tell me the swirls make it look
like the earth looks from the sky.
April 26, 2009
Oh, Laura McCullough. She never fails to amaze.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews