Erica Jong Poems

After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
...

I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
...

I was sick of being a woman,
sick of the pain,
the irrelevant detail of sex,
my own concavity
...

You gave me the child
that seamed my belly
& stitched up my life.
...

Dear Colette,
I want to write to you
about being a woman
for that is what you write to me.
...

For Naomi Lazard

Sometimes I can't wait until I look like Nadezhda Mandelstam.
-- Naomi Lazard
...

Sometimes the poem
doesn't want to come;
it hides from the poet
like a playful cat
...

Because she wants to touch him,
she moves away.
Because she wants to talk to him,
she keeps silent.
...

On the first night
of the full moon,
the primeval sack of ocean
broke,
...

Now, moving in, cartons on the floor,
the radio playing to bare walls,
picture hooks left stranded
in the unsoiled squares where paintings were,
...