Another Man

Another man is who I want.A
stronger man, one
who takes his everyday nausea
and makes of it
something benign. He keeps moving.
I want this man to turn
the corner
and pick up the children. I want him
to cook while I am down.
And then, right before the denouement,
I want him to go away,
and let me love my wife, my last, perfect wife.

Nympholepsy

I stopped her running.
She had thighs

like hell-roosters.
I wanted her so badly

I ignored her sins
and crafts. I was ensorcelled

but by my own desire.
She couldn’t make it

to the end of a movie
without grabbing my

central nerve. Sex was like
some vexed and angry sea.

When she left I cried
like a squonk. I tore my

breast open. I left the
ground sodden with my blood.

This was years ago and
the devil-devil has faded,

but it will never burn off.
Its root is deep,

and when I try to extricate it
I am half-hearted and weak.

God help me, I am half-
hearted and weak, a maniac.

Corey Mesler has published prose and/or poetry in Yellow Silk, Pindeldyboz, Mars Hill Review, Pikeville Review, Center, Small Press Review, Jabberwock Review, Rattle, Orchid, Quick Fiction, Timber Creek Review, Green Egg, Poetry Motel, Raintown Review, Potomac Review, Poetry Super Highway, Big Muddy, Slant, Wilmington Blues, Drought, Parnassus Literary Review, Wavelength, Lilliput Review, Pearl, Aurorean, Lucid Moon, Heeltap, Sunny Outside, Fish Drum, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Mid-American Poetry Review, Independence Boulevard, Midday Moon, Turnrow, Now Here Nowhere, Dust, Cherotic Revolutionary, Cotyledon, Buckle &, Iodine, Snakeskin (England), Flashpoint, Minas Tirith Evening Star, Drexel Online, Freewheelin’ (England), Pitchfork, Anthology, Poet Lore, Spillway, The Pegasus Review, Reverb, Kimera, Thema, Kumquat Meringue, Lonzie’s Fried Chicken, Both Sides Now, Razor Wire, Gin Bender, Blue Unicorn, Black Dirt, The Spirit that Moves Us, Wind, Red Rock Review, Art Times, Concrete Wolf, Memphis Magazine, Rhino, and Visions International.

He has a chapbook of poems, Piecework, from the Wing and a Wheel Press. His work appears in the anthologies Full Court: A Literary Anthology of Basketball (Breakaway Books), My Heart’s First Steps (Adams), Pocket Parenting Poetry Guide (Pudding Press), Intimate Kisses: The Poetry of Sexual Pleasure (New World Press) and Smashing Icons (Curious Rooms).

One of his short stories was chosen for the 2002 edition of New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, edited by Shannon Ravenel. His novel-in-dialogue, Talk, is just out from Livingston Press, with advance raves from Lee Smith, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Stern, Debra Spark, Frederick Barthelme, and John Grisham.

Copyright 2003, Corey Mesler. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.