Two-Headed Calf

by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

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Apparently this poem has been around.
Apparently nobody told me.
Apparently a handful of poetry profs didn’t think to tell me.
Apparently I believe they were in great error.
Apparently I love. LOVE. ADORE. WORSHIP. this poem.
Apparently I am seriously crushing on Ms. Gilpin.
Apparently I will grieve forever & a day and to the moon & back.

get used to it

We’re not here for the comfort of those who are more interested in tone-policing instead of working to fight injustice. We will continue to speak truth to power and against injustice loudly, firmly, and clearly and need neither their permission nor their approval to do so. pic.twitter.com/DTqKKZfpej

— State Senator Erika Geiss (SD06) (@SenErikaGeiss) April 27, 2022

“Intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional. This is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession.

It becomes a bore.

You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood.

If you nourished your sexual life with all the excitements and adventures which love injects into sensuality, you would be the most potent human being in the world. The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony.

Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all of the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.”

Anaïs Nin