I wanted to write a simple poem 
about the wetness between a woman's legs

and what kind of holy moment it is 
when the man's hand quietly moves south

over the smooth curve of the belly 
into the shade of that other hemisphere

and his fingertips find hidden in dark fur 
the seam already expectant in its moistness.

I wanted to write about that moment
as if it was full of incense,

and monks holding up their Latin like a torch 
deep inside a cavern of Gregorian chant,

but if I write that, someone will inevitably say what
                       has that romantic foofaw got to do

with the beleaguered realities of love 
or with the biological exigencies of lubrication

or with the vast, retarded hierarchies of human suffering?

And someone else will add 
that the man's hand
represents the historical hunter-gatherer tradition

invading the valley of the woman's body 
with the obsolete presumptions of possession,

whereas the woman's body is known to be
the starting place of agriculture,

doing just fine, thank you by itself,

until the man's hand barges into her Shangri-La, 
and tramples her zucchinis and tomatoes.

But to the man, the wetness is a blessing 
for which there is no history;

a coin that cannot be counterfeit,

and when the man's fingers reach it. 
the wetness ripples upward like a volt,
a cool wind, an annunciation

and he tastes it,
as if his hand was a tongue 
he had sent ahead of him.

I wanted to write a poem about 
                            the wetness 
between a woman's legs,

but it got complicated in language.
It is a wetness a man would make for himself
                                                     if he could

—if he could only reach
                                     that part of himself
which has been dry for years;

if he could only show
               a part of what he feels
                        when he finds out

he is not a thousand miles from home. 
That he will not have to go

into the country of desire alone.