In the room above our bed
the box springs are heavy with sex,
a thumping like even the ceiling could climax.
It’s four A.M., that oneiric hour
when heads sprout horns and
sleep’s a nightmare. They’re squealing,
moaning. We’re aroused.
(Is there no privacy in this world?)
Like the game of “telephone”—
when Mrs. O phones Mrs. C who wags her tongue
to Mrs. P—an earful’s as sexy as rhinoceros horn
or raw oysters. Mrs. O’Rourke says it’s been a long famine,
better to hoard and peel potatoes any way you can.
Current program director for Bookstock, one of Vermont’s three literary festivals, Pam Ahlen’s a hiker, skier and aspiring hermit who discovered poetry as her savior. A former music educator from South Florida, she fled to the North Country to escape strip malls and incessant sweat. Pam received an MFA from VT College of Fine Arts and has been published in Cider House Press, Main Street Rag and Bloodroot among others.
