This is also

We made sex a very small thing,

tucked it inside one bedside drawer

(the bottom one),

neatly sanctioned to an act:

"the act of sex."

not to be confused with the verb

to act, as in, to perform.

    .

Then we made sex a very large thing

by filling up the space around it

with all it is not, like polite conversation

nor a way to talk to God—no holy deed,

"doing the deed,"

not be confused with the document

which permits its doing.

    .

But sex is berry-picking,

sex is that cardinal singing on the branch,

sex is your first dandelion wish,

sex is the estuary

where she's brackish and brimming,

sex is the horny pit of a juicy plum.

A deer shits sex, for fuck's sake.

    .

And now I know, too,

sex is this grief when it geysers,

like when I am on my knees,

becoming liquid, immersing into

the thorn-grip snare

and throbbing pulse

of such enormous longing.

    .

And lately, I can insert my index

and middle fingers into

the air, and even when it's windless,

my tickled skin knows,

my lower-belly fire knows

we are each the wellspring,

the air and me.

    .

Last night I got angry and hollered

in my closet, at a neat row of uniforms:

to live erotically is the most quintessential

expression of innocence!

and that was sex, too, because I was breathy

after and cackling at the universe crammed

into the bottom bedside drawer.