We lay there, the night we met.

I was big spoon, my left hand

cupping her right breast.

She asked me about my marriage.

I revealed shame, bruises.

She said, you don’t have to live like that.

It’s only now I can see,

tree pushing through the canopy,

branches longing for the light,

that that sentence was the seed

from which everything since has unfolded,

leaf upon leaf,  foliage of a new life.

Soon after she left,

I was making the bed

and I smelled her on the sheet.

Last night I had texted from the other room

that’s my favorite thing to eat

and I don’t mean that generically

I mean YOURS is my favorite.

She said, shut up, which translates

I like that you said that

and I don’t know how to react.

It always interests me

that someone so completely themselves

self-sufficient in ways I envy

has trouble receiving positives

so I just keep doing it

you’re gorgeous, you’re so fucking brilliant,

and hope that someday

the flood of praise

will be unresisted.

I’m sitting on a  bench at the back of the sand

shaded by a tree-sized beach grape

low dunes covered with unfamiliar yellow flowers

An egret stalks around the other side of the bush

intent on unseen prey

some small bug or another

Down the beach my Beloved stands

feet sinking in wet sand

as she peers intently at something in the water

offshore, some people with more money than sense

have grounded their rented cabin cruiser

on a sandbar, somehow thinking that 50 feet out was deep enough

soon a tugboat shows up to stand watch

the server in the restaurant we went to later

says this happens once a week

the tugboat charges 375/hour and shines the rubes on

telling them they just need a little more high tide to come in

that if they pull them off now it would damage the hull

I love that the tugboat operators make a living off their stupidity

my sense of wanting to stick it to the man

gets to come out and play

so 9 hours later at 375 per, the tide has come back in

and the cabin cruiser floats free

owing the tugboat operator thousands for doing nothing

not to mention whatever the late fees

for bringing the rental boat back late are

I wanted to swim out and tell them I have a bridge for sale

but mostly in this moment I am watching my Beloved walking away

and remembering how her ass felt

bare against my hand this morning

I learned a new euphemism yesterday:

buttering the corn.

Yes, I’m talking about self-pleasure

choking the chicken

spanking the monkey

blowing your own horn

waxing the carrot

which, I admit, are all terms I have never used

it sounds painful, and like, why is tight better anyway?

I bet many of you are already uncomfortable, so

I might as well make it more so, yes,

I’m talking about: masturbation.

I remember when I was in high school

( and, this isn’t going where you think it is)

and in orchestra class, to get ready for competitions,

we had professionals from the Houston Symphony lead section rehearsals;

there was one girl in the cello section, and he sent her out of the room

and said, ok guys, vibrato is like a jacking off motion,

as if she didn’t know what that was, or he was just embarrassed

to say it in front of her, or thought he’d get in trouble possibly,

but I could have assured him she knew exactly what that hand motion was

and was quite proficient at it,

or like the time when I was married and my ex and her friend

did dining reviews for the newspaper, and we went to this Chinese place

and he ordered something with pickled shrimp,

and the chef, a woman, came out and leaned in close,

and said, cannot cook that, it is too big the pickle,

and made a large male-self-pleasuring motion with her hand

and ever after when we ordered something that they didn’t have

we’d all say, in unison, it is too big the pickle and make the motion

so anyway, I can tell you

that there are as many ways to shake hands with Dr. Winky

as there are people alive on earth,

I looked up euphemisms and that was one I had never heard before,

and, we used to say, 90 % of people masturbate and the other 10% are lying,

but I have actually met a few people who really don’t, and I can’t figure that one out,

even evangelicals who think they’re going to hell if they do, do it,

they just feel guilty as sin afterwards, and as a coach I have to deal with that a lot,

so what I have to say to everyone is, damn it, let’s drop the accumulated shame

about masturbating, because the health benefits alone are phenomenal,

and, for women who have difficulty orgasming, it is the major assignment

we as sex coaches give, I mean, it’s a practice, and how are you going to know

what your body likes unless you actually practice?

I bet most of you, cause I know it’s true for me, still tend to masturbate

the exact same way you did when you first discovered it

and you know, that’s something to be curious about,

do you use your dominant or non-dominant hand, and why,

what kind of touch, how much pressure, is it fast or slow,

but really, try a different way, or a different touch, or hand,

or use a toy, and there are male toys too,

if you’re too embarrassed to buy one in a store

you can mail-order them, and, what about

non-goal oriented self-pleasure, is it really imperative

that you have an orgasm every time, or could you

set a timer and just see what feels good without needing to ‘finish’

so many variables you could be curious about;

I think it is vital to throw out the goddamn religiously imposed shame

that so many of us hold onto even if we’re not religious

it is culturally embedded, just like not talking about

how much money we earn when in other cultures that’s totally accepted,

so, yes, I do masturbate, and you don’t have to imagine that if you don’t want,

but my kinky side is happy for you to if you do,

and I know some people will say way way TMI, but really,

our thoughts are not actions and thinking about other people’s

sexuality and sexual practices is not creepy in and of itself,

only when it becomes intrusive or coercive or threatening,

of course there is a difference between privacy and openness

and I always, as you can see, err on the side of openness,

and I’ve had this discussion with clergy friends who say that

modesty is the most Christian approach, but don’t we all know

how modesty can be turned into manipulation and shaming,

and, if this is making you uncomfortable, perhaps I would suggest

that you get curious about why that is, and how you could free yourself

from that residual shame, because, we all deserve to fully own

every bit of pleasure these limited, finite, slowly-always-dying bodies can give us.

Perhaps I push the covers off. Too heavy. Perhaps I slide my feet

into the slippers a former lover gave me. I cannot not think

about her for a moment. Perhaps I open the container

and smell dark roast beans. Perhaps I grind them.

Water boiling already. Pour over.

Perhaps, the ritual complete, I sit at my desk.

Perhaps I message my Beloved and my Princess.

Perhaps the birds are singing the same songs

they have sung before memory.

Perhaps there is good work for me to do today

and I will not accidentally harm my hands with tools.

Perhaps my heart will not shrink. Steam rises.

Perhaps I have been sitting here always,

not present in this moment, not holding this coffeecup,

not breathing, not sliding into my skin,

until the birdsong merges into my hand and the steam

and the sharp, bitter liquid in my mouth,

until perhaps ends and I am now.

In the morning she said,

I love it when I find

one of my favorite underwear

on my shelf in your closet.

I’m lying in bed, unusually,

normally I’m up making coffee and such

but this morning she had to leave

for a work thing, bra non-optional

sleepily watching her struggle with it

unaccustomed since pandemic

her back to me like when I first knew her

and she was shy to disrobe, perhaps not believing

my verbal appreciation, she still says,

when I say she’s gorgeous,

‘shut up’, but I know it’s halfhearted.

I’m not sure if I hear the door closing,

lock turning, in dream or reality,

drifting into drowse mode again,

remembering last week, how she said

sitting at my table over breakfast,

bacon is like the obnoxious Dom who wears

brand-new black leather and has to tell everyone he’s a Dom

He goes straight for the spanking every time,

except that since then I have reread our dating app questions

and now I know she likes spankings,

and I forgot that this date until just now,

my palms slightly longing for the sting,

it’s not just her erotic imagination,

she makes me laugh so, like when we decided

to have breakfast for supper this time

before she came over, talking it through,

and she said, so we’ll have plancakes,

or when I had said, you’re the hottest woman I remember,

and she said, that’s sure an old guy pickup line.

When she calls me leaving her meeting later

I remember how she said that if I got sick

she would take care of me, and would when I”m old,

not to worry, but what I am mostly thinking

is that I wish I would be there at her house

when she got home and took her bra off,

and wondering, because I hadn’t looked earlier,

which are her favorite underwear.

Her ghost stands on the back patio

while I am mowing

pointing at spots I missed.

So I flipped it off and said,

listen, bitch, never again

am I going to allow you

to steal my joy.

The last time that she hit me

finally broke the exoskeleton of my heart

I  had built it up slowly

Adding small bits of chitin

A crazy-quilt of polysaccharidic protection

There were often barrages

of rocket-propelled words,

canisters of diminshment-gas

shaming IED’s,

but years of accretion

had hardened my inner being,

I did not feel her attacks any more,

an achievement made possible

by not feeling anything.

Then at the final blow

all I had squirreled away

all the anger, self-loathing,

somatic anguish, began to flow

leaking out of the crack slowly at first,

gathering momentum as the dam eroded

until the torrent was beyond bearing.

I became afraid to cry

for fear I would never stop.

Eventually  the storm passed, the waters leveled

and though the valley of where I had been was flooded

I found myself standing on solid ground

surveying the detritus of half my life

determined to salvage nothing

of the dreams and vows floating in the muck;

From this outcropping, my footing increasingly secure,

cool breezes of love, acceptance, flourishing,

flow all around me.

In front of me

lies a road I could never have imagined,

freedom to become myself,

populated with one’s smile as she sees me approach,

another’s kiss through scratchy beard,

a third’s head on my shoulder, her hair soft in my face.

She gave me a sodalite heart on Valentine’s.

I had been sloughing off grief;

God knows, there’s enough to go around.

But then I held her, cool blue, in my palm.

The thing about stone is that,

imperceptibly slowly,

your body heat warms it.

It’s bigger than I expected

It’s smaller than I expected

That’s snack size

Size doesn’t matter

I”m a size queen

I don’t know if I’ll even feel that

I hope it doesn’t hurt, that’s way bigger than my ex-husband

You look slimmer with clothes on

You look heavier with clothes on

Your hair is so cute like that

Why don’t you take better care of your appearance?

You’re so handsome

I wouldn’t mind being flogged

are you ever going to touch my pussy?

I hate pain

Are those ropes hanging in the corner?

You make me laugh so much

I wish you would (fill in the blank with what their last boyfriend did)

I am falling more and more in love with you

Now we’re not just fluid-bonded, we’re fart-bonded

I think you missed a spot