Tuesday Poem - Damp little Oedipus by Helen Lehndorf

Damp little Oedipus

The bed is a boat, filling with, filling with—

we are trying to launch into sleep

limp, limp, lull and skull

hot, close night—95% humidity,

5% humility,

0% humanity

His naked six year old body in the lamp-

light taking up the bed. Breathing the air

holding my cheeks in his hands, using

my breast for a pillow, grinding grinding his knee

into my thigh. We tried so many times

to put him back to bed but he was so hot

he sprang back, he would spring up

and we keep finding him here,

right in the middle of us.

He is clam,

all clammy and cling-cling.

You peel him off the bed:

'Damp little Oedipus', you fold him in a sheet

and mail him back to bed, you wedge his door

shut with James Joyce's 'Ulysses'. He goes

cry,cry,cry but we select deafness.

We are finally drifting off and then I wake us up to say

'What are you thinking about?' and you say

'Computer hardware' and make a small

mock-orgasmic sound.