This next poem is entitled "Odalisque."
It came in a roundabout way from a letter that I read,
I think, in Playboy magazine written into the Playboy
advisor or some such thing, in which a housewife had
written in and said that she--
do you people, want to sit down?
You're not going to disturb me if you try to find seats.
She had written in and said that she did her housework naked,
and she was asking the Playboy advisor if she
was a pervert because of this.
And I was stimulated somewhat by this
but imagining a whole new class of peeping
Toms who got up early instead of late, right?
But months later, letters started
pouring in from housewives all over the place
saying they also did their housework naked,
and I think that had a huge impact upon me.
So eventually, this poem came out of it.
The title is ironic.
The title is "Odalisque."
It's a Turkish word if I remember correctly,
referring to a girl who is a harem girl and a slave
girl at the same time.
The woman in the poem-- a couple of things I should explain
in case they're not completely clear--
is pregnant, is doing a housework naked.
And the only thing that she is wearing
is a large chained medallion, which has
the head of a dog carved on it.
"Odalisque"-- such a common housewife.
One only realizes the insanities in one's poems
after a period of time has gone by.
Vacuuming naked this morning, balancing
on her puffed white stomach the silver head of a dog--
a chained medallion-- she whispers desperately.
The cold coin rises, consciously taking her breath
the morning right out of her lungs.
Eyes, red obsidian and black, leap at her face, and the jaw
snaps back against her left breast and her heart.
Is she whispering love me?
The child in her belly awakens, turns.
Countess, lover, here I am dangling from my watch chain.
Over the sly wheeze of the machine,
it sucks at her heart blindly as if in love.
Both of them dream, then awake.
The dog's head swings on its chain forward and back.
A cold hand on her chest.
And pushing its legs deep within her thighs, the child walks.