Collected poems of Sharon Olds

"Primitive"

I have heard about the civilized, 
the marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are 
savages. You come in with a bag, 
hold it out to me in silence. 
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it 
and understand the message: I have 
pleased you greatly last night. We sit 
quietly, side by side, to eat, 
the long pancakes dangling and spilling, 
fragrant sauce dripping out, 
and glance at each other askance, wordless, 
the corners of our eyes clear as spear points 
laid along the sill to show 
a friend sits with a friend here. 

"Voices"

                (for Lucille)

Our voices race to the towers, and up beyond
the atmosphere, to the satellite,
slowly turning, then back down
to another tower, and cell. Quincy, 
Toi, Honoree, Sarah, Dorianne, 
Galway. When Athena Elizalex calls, 
I tell her I’m missing Lucille’s dresses,
and her shoes, and Elizabeth says “And she would say,
“Damn! I do look good!'"  After we
hang up, her phone calls me again
from inside her jacket, in the grocery store
with her elder son, eleven, I cannot                        
hear the words, just part of the matter
of the dialogue, it’s about sugar, I am
in her pocket like a spirit. Then I dream it — 
looking at an illuminated city 
from a hill, at night, and suddenly
the lights go out — like all the stars
gone out.  “Well, if there is great sex
in heaven," we used to say, “or even just
sex, or one kiss, what’s wrong
with that?!”  Then I’m dreaming a map of the globe, with
bright pinpoints all over it —
in the States, the Caribbean, Latin America,
in Europe, and in Africa —
everywhere a poem of hers is being
read.  Small comfort.  Not small
to the girl who curled against the wall around the core
of her soul, keeping it alive, with long
labor, then unfolded into the hard truths, the
lucid beauty, of her song.            

                                                       15 Feb ‘10

"Blowjob (Vulgar Slang)"

I never thought of it as a line of work.

I did not think of myself, with my lunch pail,

going to the job and punching my time clock in and out.

Surely that act was not divided 

into management, who were owners,

and staff, who had no share in the profit.

"Job," 

is that what they thought?

That it was boring for us and we couldn't wait 'til we could break for lunch?

They thought that they were rulers commanding us against our will,

there was a thrill in that?

A payback for having to do what mom says when dad's at work

blowing his master?

So that the one who was being given suck after hours

already gave at the office?

It's weird thinking about it from a bosses point of view:

looking down at the working head, 

the alienated labor, 

looking down the pay scale, too.

If they were both engaged in the same act

it wouldn't be a job, would it,

but play. 

Play in the house of the gods of pleasure.

At least "blow" is not a word from commerce

but the golden rule of music:

know, as you would be known.

Blow, as you would be blown.

Listen, at Poets.org