1yulSVC

Notorious
Valerie Nieman
Need Press Repeat: ’Green,’ ’Sex,’ ’Cancer,’ ’Secret,’ ’Fat’
—headline from The New York Times
It would become later, though not at first, a secret—
an affair worthy of a Restoration rake and a green
girl, all about the sex sex sex,
urgent, as though a diagnosis of cancer
had sent a shudder through the fat
of my frame, alarm bell tolling, no longer safe.
It had been one thing to feel safe
with him, to sigh after love like the Secret
after the Offertory—another to roll in the fat
of indulgence, to gourmandize until green
in the face, a real Tropic of Cancer
romp through a corn maze of sex,
itchy and hot and exhausting. No need to sex
up the story—middle-aged woman flees the safe
haven of post-marriage celibacy, the slow cancer
of a new old-maid-hood, virginity secreted
for reuse by matronly Hera at some green
bosky pool—too bad it’s that other goddess considered phat
tahoma literary review 33