Sex, Kink, and the Erotic: Three Poems by Taylor Byas
Poem In Which I Watch You Slip Away With My Own Eyes
Moments after you curated my undoings
on your tongue, we lay in silence.
My bed sheet a museum
of introductions—your palm greeting the ditch
between my thigh and backside,
your two-fingered
come-hither to which I said hello, hello,
and oohh—the silence in which
my neck buttered
itself with your teeth’s sickle-curve. I should
tell you, no one prepared me
for this; the tension
drum-stretched, Trojan-thin, and how suddenly
you didn’t know what to do
with your hands.
Everything I could offer in this moment was
a check for you to bounce,
and God
the quiet you kept me in. So we laid there, beyond
our years, like an old couple
who had already
said everything they needed to to one another.
I waited for the routine we hadn’t
yet formed, for you
to turn over after it was all done, your back to me.
My only reassurance, the first
thundering of your snore.
The Monster You May Marry
how this ends. Your husband, a pomaded perfection. Before he kisses you goodbye, you say the thing
you always say. I’ll have dinner when you get back, darling. The twinkle in his eye a gun’s misfiring.
You lose your mind a little more every day. Misplace your keys [Laughter] burn the chicken, we know
how this ends; your husband a pomaded perfection before he kisses you. Goodbye. You say the thing
any woman would say, well darling, don’t you love me? And he says sure I do honey, flat. [Laughter]
You lose your mind a little more. Every day, misplace your keys, laughter. Burn the chicken. We know
your husband is two-timing, two-stepping into a hotel room lit dim enough for imagination, where
any woman would say, well darling, don’t you love me? and he says sure I do honey. Flat laughter,
a timestamp we rewind back to catch| to catch | the catch in his voice. You’re putting on lipstick and
your husband is two-timing. Two-stepping into a hotel room, lit dim enough. For imagination, where
do you fold your anguish? In the fitted sheets? [Laughter] The lacy lingerie still splendid in the drawer?
A timestamp we rewind back to catch? To catch the catch in his voice, you’re putting on lipstick and
freckling your neck with perfume—mussed up hair, a vision of sex when he calls to say don’t wait up.
Do you fold your anguish in the fitted sheets’ laughter? The lacy lingerie still splendid in the drawer
mocks you. [Laughter] The only thing that will warm you between your thighs. Your husband returns,
freckling your neck with perfume. Mussed up hair, a vision of sex. When he calls to say don’t wait up,
you always say, I’ll have dinner when you get back darling. The twinkle in his eye (a gun’s misfiring)
mocks you. Laughter, the only thing that will warm you. Between your thighs, your husband returns.
Consider the quotidian; horrors, this life, your 80s sitcom with a laugh-track, the audience who knows.
Joking About the Pandemic, A Friend Texts The Group Chat “I’ve Unhoed Myself”
—Considering Jason B. Crawford
Let us begin in the garden, hoe in hand,
the rusted scythe as urgent as archeology
which only means it plans to take its time
with the killing. I draw back, dive the blade
into the packed earth until it gashes, makes
the ground beneath me uncertain. Let us
move then to my bedroom, where a man
makes himself too at home between my legs,
where I say I think it’s time for you to go before
the going gets. Stuck up bitch, harmonizing
with the sound of his arms barreling into
the leather sleeves of his biker jacket,
and I catch nothing but a hoe anyways as
the front door clucks it’s tongue, so let us
begin again with the definition. Urban Dictionary
says a hoe is someone who lets any old color pencil
into their sharpener without considering
the word itself has been sharpened already.
Oxford says to hoe is to dig (earth) or thin out
and this is closer to the truth, as men have lost
all the air in their lungs, have been emptied
beneath me. Let us return to the text message—
“I’ve unhoed myself” they say, meaning they
are the agent of the act, have robbed other men
of their spit. Here, let me translate—I’ve unhoed
myself 🡪 I’ve pulled myself from loose soil 🡪 I’ve
re-whittled the word as gauze to pack my wound.
About Taylor Byas
Taylor Byas is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is now a second year PhD student and Yates scholar at the University of Cincinnati, and an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus. She was the 1st place winner of both the Poetry Super Highway and the Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets Contests, and a finalist for the Frontier OPEN Prize. Her chapbook, Bloodwarm, is forthcoming from Variant Lit this summer. She is represented by Rena Rossner of the Deborah Harris Agency.