Bad Sex
by Rich Furman

I don't want to have bad sex she said,
I only like to have, am willing to have, good sex.

I wondered if she thought I was planning,
lying there with her breasts and curls and breathing,

and the drift of wine carrying my senses gentle,
on remaining flaccid or finishing before the bell,

or my hands skilless and clumsy and adolescent,
does anyone ever plan on having bad sex?

And before I could answer she started and she rode
and I was watching and she was having good sex,

but I was somewhere else, taken this way without
warning and feeling like studded barn animal,

and she having good sex and I having bad sex,
and I now understand her riddle of mad ego and when finished having

good sex, jumps off a gymnast completing the perfect routine,
I, the parallel bars, and the judges of mind

beaming holding perfect score cards, and the cameras flashing
and she humble, gracious, accepting, sleeps quickly,

my arm the perfect captive as the sun pours through
the Victorian windows, the serrated light cropping our faces,

and thinking about good sex and bad sex and sex I will never have,
with women deserving but ignored by ones who perfect demand youth and looks,

and somewhere, also asleep in the arms of another, one who also had good sex
meant unbeknownst to and for me, but I taken in a maelstrom

of good sex, and winter was almost upon us,
and I was losing ground, and I was too young to know any better.

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