Poetry, Sex, Heat Poem by Hans Ostrom

eading poetry in full sun,
Central Valley California blaze:
words cooked up images.
they melted into heat-mirages. reading

one poem made me want to read
another. I binged, sweated
as I read. and sex in a stifling
room: I liked that also: to be

young and naked in a hot dark room—
that was fine for us. in swelter,
poetry acquired a body.

sex insisted. like a good hard poem,
it wanted something from us. what
did we know of sacred and profane?
poetry and sex have always
been lovers, faithful and fierce.
sex and poetry on the Valley floor:

that's what I wanted then.
that's what I was for.