SEX IS A MUSHROOM

Sex is a mushroom, a gilled fish,

a burning bush

that says pick up your staff

and go unto pharoah

and throw it down like a protean rod

that will glut on the snakes

of lesser magicians.

Sex is a Jesuit casuist

counselling a wealthy, young widow,

the sinister tine of the serpent’s tongue

and a fang of fire in a heart of ice

until it thaws like a phase of the moon,

or the overly-obsessive demands of a loveletter

defused like lightning

by the moister air of a suppler compliance.

Night-dew and broth of life,

sex is the ghost of a dragon

released by the mortal flame

of a funeral candle,

the stump of a black fire hydrant

listening for sirens

and waiting for hose,

a mermaid in a see-through wetsuit

that sings to everyone

in the key of their own voice

lyrics of dark bliss

shuddering like swans

opening like white peonies

in the eye of the lock.

Apocalypse, ecstasy, sparagmos,

sex is a millenarian,

a rapture freak,

a spiritual kidnapper

with Stockholm syndrome

waiting to be ransomed by his captive.

Sex is an underage medium

molested by demi-urges

trying to implicate Eve again

in their botched creations.

PATRICK WHITE