First Contact

Photo by Gabrielle Cianfrani

FIRST CONTACT

If I open to you
Will you hurt me?
Or will we two be discovering
Brand new kinds of play?

Are we destined
To be known as
That Astonishing Couple
Or will we act out Darwinian
Predator and Prey?

Will we be so overwhelmed
By the humdrum of being
That we miss each moment's role
As a step on the Way?

Or will each moment teach us
A new piece of music
That our bodies will move to
But words cannot say?

Innocent

INNOCENT

When my breasts began to swell
And I had my first bleeding
I went to my friend Janice's house
Who showed me how to use a tampon
And told me her first sexual experience.

With a "bad boy" in school named Nick.

"How far did you two go?"

After dark we snuck off into the woods 
behind Nick's house
Talked about nothing, held hands 
and listened to animal noises.

"Holding hands in the dark? 
Is that all you two did together?"

Well, we did smoke a little pot
And we each dropped a tab or two of CHUB:
(CHUB = hexa-methoxy-triathlon).

And let me tell you, sister.
On CHUB
Holding hands
Felt to both of us
Like the interpenetration of galaxies.

Collapse of the Wave Function

Nick Herbert (Photo by Rudy Rucker)

COLLAPSE OF THE WAVE FUNCTION
(For Kate Bowland and Raven Lang)

Each moment's a never-repeated creation
Hot, sticky, wet, and screaming to be
Feeling this squeeze itself out
Of a hole in the mystery
Each moment's birth is a new birth of me.