February 14, 2025: "Six-Year-Old Boy," Valentine's Day, "Mince and Whisk"

Being a poet sometimes means you speak truths that may upset other people.  That's the reason poets have been thrown in prison or exiled all through history--from Ovid to Allen Ginsberg.  Truth can frighten people, even if it's spoken with compassion and love.  Sharon Olds is one of those poets who can make her readers . . . uncomfortable.

Sharon Olds contemplates her son growing up . . . 

Six-Year-Old Boy

by: Sharon Olds

We get to the country late at night
in late May, the darkness is warm and
smells of half-opened lilac.
Our son is asleep oh the back seat,
his wiry limbs limp and supple
except where his hard-on lifts his pajamas like the
earth above the shoot of a bulb,
I say his name, he opens one eye and it
rolls back to the starry white.
I tell him he can do last pee
on the grass, and he smiles on the surface of sleep like
light in the surface if water. 

He pulls his pajamas down and there it
is, gleaming like lilac in the dark,
hard as a heavy-duty canvas fire-hose
shooting its steel stream.
He leans back, his pale face
blissful. The piss, lacy and fragile,
arcs over the black lawn.
Afterwards, no hands,
he shakes himself dry, cock tossing like a
horse’s white neck, and then he
leans against the car, grinning,
eyes closed, sound asleep,
his sex pointing straight ahead,
leading him
as if by the nose
into his life, late May,
June, late June, July,
full summer.

Yes, Olds is writing about her six-year-old son's penis.  And, yes, some people might think this poem is inappropriate.  (I'm not one of those people.)  I can absolutely see a certain brand of person crying foul over this little love poem.  

Yes, I said "love poem" because that's exactly what it is--a mother writing lovingly, intimately about her son.  Olds never holds back.  In fact, I would say she simply doesn't give a shit if her writing makes you squirm a little.  That's her job.

Today is Valentine's Day.  My little family celebrated by having dinner together tonight--Mexican food, per our kids' request.  It was lovely time.  We talked, ate, watched TV, played some games.  These are the people I love the most in my life.  They ground me.  Remind me of what's really important.  

My wife and I have been through some rough patches, as most of my faithful disciples know.  But we have overcome those obstacles.  This year, we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  That's a lot of water under the bridge, and there's a whole lot of water still to go.  My wife was the one who kept me alive this past November and December when I was in the midst of a major depressive episode.  She's done that countless times.

So, tonight, Saint Marty celebrates the love of his life with a poem based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Relying on memory, a culinary dictionary, or a stack of cookbooks, make three separate lists of verbs, nouns, and adjectives related to cooking and baking (score, truss, whisk, juice), then write a love poem using at least five words from each list.

Mince and Whisk

by: Martin Achatz

How many times have we been

together in the kitchen, mincing

garlic, whisking eggs and cream,

you lifting a sticky finger to my lips,

me licking the sweet batter from your

teaspoon, each taste filled with

raw hunger for more and more--

more whipping, more beating,

more dough folded into more dough

folded into (Oh, God, yes!) more

dough until the yeast activates,

begins to swell and rise and

breathe, brim, boil over the bowl's

lip, because it cannot be contained,

subdued, becomes something

necessary to live, fine as flour,

golden as yolk, and when the oven's

hot fingers press into its flesh,

it saturates the entire house

with its satisfied, sated breath?