The Poetry of Sex by Sophie Hannah Page B

Sex?
Amorak Huey
    Maybe back in the ’60s,
    when sex was more popular …
        – Freshman essay
    Sex lives in a bungalow in the Hollywood Hills,
    comes out only for special occasions –
    anniversaries, holidays, the Oscars sometimes.
    Old pals like Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll stop by,
    checking up, always too quick with a compliment
    on how well she’s holding up, you know, considering.
    Sex tries hard not to whine for the good old days
    or blame her agent –
She says I should be doing
    TV
! Can you imagine?
– but in the evenings
    after her friends have gone and the lemon sun
    slumps behind the orange trees
    she can’t help but ache to be popular again,
    to feel the heat rising from flash bulbs –
    that electric thrill of being wanted –
    god, to be wanted once more before dark.

Acknowledgements
    Adcock, Fleur: ‘Madmen’ from
Poems
1960–2000
, Bloodaxe, 2000, reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books; Agbabi, Patience: ‘The Sting’ from
Transformatrix,
Canongate, 2000, reprinted by permission of Canongate; Ammons, A. R.: ‘Their Sex Life’, from
The Really Short Poems of A. R. Ammons
by A. R. Ammons. Copyright © 1990 by A. R. Ammons. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; Armitage, Simon: ‘To His Lost Lover’ from
Book of Matches
, Faber, 1993, reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber; Aubury, Nic: ‘Casanever’ and ‘The Couple Upstairs’ from
Cold Soup
, Nasty Little Press, 2013, reprinted by permission of the poet; Barber, Ros: ‘Ur Thurs Reidh Ansur’, first published in
Stand
, 2000, reprinted by permission of the poet; Barrett, Elizabeth: ‘Intimacy’ from
The Bat Doctor
, Wrecking Ball Press, 2005, reprinted by permission of the poet; Bell, Jo: ‘Magnets’ and ‘Muse’, reprinted by permission of the poet; Benyon, Kaddy: ‘Guacamole’, reprinted by permission of the poet; Bird, Caroline: ‘The Plague’ from
Trouble Came to the Turnip
, Carcanet, 2006, reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press; Brackenbury, Alison: ‘And’, first published in
London Magazine
, reprinted by permission of the poet; Burt, Dan: ‘The End of the Affair’ and ‘The Faithful’ from
We Look Like This
, Carcanet, 2012, reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press; Catallus, Gaius Valerius: ‘Carmen 16’, translation by G. M. Palmer, first published by Burlesque Press, reprinted by permission of the translator; Cavafy, C. P.: ‘Remember, Body …’ and ‘He Asked about the Quality’ from
The Selected Poems of C. P. Cavafy,
edited and translated by Avi Sharon, Penguin Classics, 2008. Translation and editorial matter copyright © Avi Sharon, 2008; Chase, Linda: ‘Young Men Dancing’ from
Young Men Dancing
, Smith/Doorstep Books, 1994, reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press; Cookman, Leo: ‘Haikus to Fuck to’, reprinted by permission of the poet; Cope, Wendy: ‘From Strugnell’s Sonnets’ and ‘Message’ from
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis
, Faber, 1986, reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber; Copus, Julia: ‘In Defence of Adultery’ from
In Defence of Adultery,
Bloodaxe, 2004, reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books; cummings, e. e.: ‘i like my body when it is with your’. Copyright 1923, 1925, 1951, 1953 © 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1976 by George James Firmage, ‘may I feel said he’. Copyright 1935 © 1963, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1978 by George James Firmage, from
Complete Poems:
1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of LiverightPublishing Corporation; Duffy, Carol Ann: ‘Adultery’ from
Mean Time.
Copyright © Carol Ann Duffy, 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd, 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN ; Dyer, Claire: ‘Punctuation’, reprinted with permission, from
Eleven Rooms
by Claire Dyer, published by Two Rivers Press, 2013; Etchingham, John: ‘Explode’, reprinted by permission of the poet;