You Could Not Say the Words

I would ask E.J. to post this on his website, but he's on hiatus.

For those of you unfamiliar with this work, it is a remnant from my affair with the poet Karla Frances Sasser (and she lets me refer to her by name, she seems actually proud of our little hormone storm), who is referred to in my muses as "The Mad Gypsy". Hard to explain.

Anyway, while prepping for the psycho podcast that is overdue and killing me, she requested this poem for the entry about her. I could never refuse her anything (she actually was one of the people who pressed me into my second marriage, I sometimes say I only did it because she asked me to). It is an odd and very honest work, about how she could not bring herself to say "I love you" during our time together, as the emotional intensity was tearing her apart (I am not known for drawing-room affairs, more like spiritual cyclones that destroy small islands, end civilizations and overturn all but the hardiest and best handled of craft).

She loves to hear me read this, particularly with "that voice". How could I refuse her?

You Could Not Say the Words

you could not say the words
when the time came,
fear holding back the wet step
across a Rubicon I had already forded,
sliding into you as sacrament.

you writhed and sighed and tensed
with every motion made and splayed
wide your form to swallow whole
my every exploration of all
but your soul, kept inviolate from me.

and so, I fed on your warm flesh
and willing, eager, enthusiasm.
feeling legs entwine and the wine
spilling from you as though uncorked
from a vintage of jasmine and blood.

you could not say the words
but spoke with hungry eloquence
as merging lovers, unlabeled in your heart,
but springing well your Venus flytrap
on one who came to hear them.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.