our general banality

was sex and more of it. sex and talk of it. sex and sexuality and sexism. until some among us began to differentiate it. prefix and suffix it. label it a matter of preference, genetic reconnaissance at birth. and it was it and it was not it. until some among us began to psalm. and what about doing it. and when would we do it to each other again. and it was gratuitous. the blue and white lament of it. until it moved us into ecological proximity. what was near and how loud. the flesh budding, ripening. it had always been a matter of proximity. the what it is was close to us. lewd and it was common. consumptive and it was money. extractive and it was public.

to whet the thing a finger strums a seam of glass

then spirit set its feels on us

we were tending
we were swirling

and we were sensing when it hit us

a porous limb        a glowing portal

sam rivers on repeat

the romanticism of aromanticism inside a poem
the orifice of pitch        a clutch of birds

then our dreams became tumescent
such holiness was flame


and it was fuchsia fuchsia all over the place

Copyright © 2022 by fahima ife. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 16, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“This poem emerged as I was writing an experimental prose series on intimacy. The series tries to destabilize sexuality as the epicenter of intimacy. The series, instead, delights in sensuality—the shared spirit of loving. As it turns out, it is not easy to disentangle the sexual from the sensual. As I was struggling to write a clear thing about friends and love, the poem offered a sequence—from sex to senses—and it flowers as much as it fails.”
—fahima ife