Graveyard sex (An ode to Mary Shelley) - Megan Marie Finkel

I’d rather believe the fantasy that is her

the first time I lied about my sexual history

we were drunk with overlapping arms in a graveyard 

funnily, I believe this is where the living go to

empty their remorse

the author of Frankenstein’s

mother died in childbirth

infected by the aching body that became of her daughter

I think of esther who witnessed

the bewitching birthing, the widening

vagina switched open like a cat eye

I’d like to believe that these women

who wrote and wept and died

equipped with the knowledge of grief

the smell of rot

liked sex, mostly because they

enjoyed feeling someone

else inside of them, only temporarily (we slip

into one another)

cold, warm and then colder

cold as death itself

her sprawling body commands desire

Deleuze imagined that Kafka

wrote his letters because he couldn’t come

i.e. achieve orgasm via the putrid body

like him, I’d rather empty my desire in the postman and

let nature take care of the rest

here: when I tell you I believe that Mary fucked

her beloved Percy for the first time

on top of her dead mother’s grave I

am telling you I believe that desire is 

open wide, anamnesis, cunts

my ivy wrapped heart coming undone

I maintain that the most tortured of us

and by us I mean women

the only legion that has and will ever exist

are brimming with desire, bursting with yearning

for life, love

touchtouchtouch

and implore you, go find yourself one

and take her to her favourite graveyard on the first date

Bio:

Megan Finkel is a queer poet living in New York City. She is a student of Comparative Literature and Russian Language at NYU and is an intern for Hanging Loose Press. Megan enjoys writing on topics such as the body, mental health, spiritualism, love and sex. Find her on Twitter @megfinkel.