MÉNAGE À TRIOLETS, by Heidi Czerwiec

A [PANK] Blog guest series for National Poetry Month

TWO SHADES OF GREY

I. Dear Mr. Grey:

All new lovers need to learn restraint.
Unless it’s sexy fun, you’re doing it wrong.
Your Red Room of Pain may make me faint
with desire: all lovers could use some restraint,
someone to show the ropes, the cuffs, the quaint
trappings of bondage, to come on strong.
But while all lovers need to learn some restraint,
your controlling lack of fun is doing it wrong.

II. After the Movie

We try a little kink, some S&M—
all we do is laugh: do what? We’re boring
ourselves with the same-old same-old, so on a whim
we try a little kink: some S&M,
a blindfold, cuffs, light spanking. We feel dumb,
but no discovery without exploring,
so we try a little kink, some S&M.
All we do is laugh. So what; we’re boring.

***

Heidi Czerwiec is a poet, essayist, translator, and critic who teaches at the University of North Dakota and is poetry editor at North Dakota Quarterly. She is the author of three chapbooks, including Self-Portrait as Bettie Page, and the forthcoming A Is For A-ké, The Chinese Monster. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Waxwing, and Able Muse, and you can visit her at heidiczerwiec.com