Poem 132 ± October 14, 2015

Octavio R. González
Violin Sex

gold medal around his neck
the flecks of his eyes

shards of goldenrod
Crayola smile

mirrored thing so lovely
you tell me

lines of cocaine as white
as your eyes

envisioning

the ecstasy of me, this room, this
meeting of bone muscle skin

a performance you want to attend
the sex so damn good you want it all

over again, and when it’s done
the perfect cupid’s bow of your lips

gives me that expensive kiss
a gift so dazzling, but this

time it’s free: I would love to

stay in bed with you all day, but
I have places to go, people to see

—and the laugh track surrounding
us, whoever that is, when the fantasy

is done, the body lies down and plays dead
with a noose around its head—

trips on the carpet as he asks you to
dance the tango in a blindfold:

this love, like Plato’s triangle,
never to behold the crueler

measures of reality,
inexact and slightly

hypocritical—small lies of yesterday
morning, perhaps after coffee,

when repeating the scene you realize

how he said, your hands touching me
like a master handles his violin.

Tavi GonzalezOctavio R. González is the author of the poetry collection The Book of Ours (Momotombo Press, 2009), a selection of the Letras Latinas/Institute for Latino Letters series at the University of Notre Dame. His work appears in numerous journals, including Puerto del Sol, miPoesías, The Richmond Review, and OCHO. He is currently working on a series of love poems, among other projects. Octavio teaches English literature at Wellesley College.