Sharon Olds’s poem is called “To You, from Your Secret Admirer,” and it’s part of the selection contained in Poetry April 2023. It’s the steamiest poem I’ve read since encountering Louise Labé in college French and learning the ramifications of baiser.

You can read the Olds poem here. Want a taste of it?

… I am so tired of not looking at you,
I want to gaze at you with a day-long
gaze. The barriers down! The doors off their
hinges! After coming, and coming,
as if with you, I miss you more.
I want you hour and hour in my line of
sight…

Those exclamation points are stirring! The poem supports a bias of mine that eroticism from the female pen is of a higher order of merit than the average on the scale of things worth paying attention to.

(c) 2023 JMN —EthicalDative. All rights reserved