The Lesbian Philosophy Teacher Poem by RIC BASTASA

i guess it does not really matter
whether she is a lesbian or not
at the university she teaches
the philosophy of man and she
ticks, bites, slashes, and rubs
our minds with the sharp knife
of her understanding as to
who we are, what we are and
what we are apt to
this becoming of being crawls
from her very tongue
the one that she uses to make love
love, to make love work
in an age of hatred and war
her fingers are gentle and i know
how they are used to make
her lover feel the love that much
often real men deny her
outside the doors of the university
she lets out smoke
and somehow she exits regrets
that pleasure and its extremes
can be obtained not inside the book
at the libraries of this world
but in the intimacies inside her
locked room with someone
whose name she cannot even
reveal for fear of reprisals
she has to earn her bread to live
and at the same time
make her life a secret rose
a tight bud, a falling leaf
a twisted twig, a hidden island.