I’ve been drinking coffee, dancing to Amanda Palmer’s new single, and now I’m re-reading some poetry by Ted Hughes. Here’s the thing: Hughes was brilliant, but his work could also be wonderfully sexual.One of my favorite passages from Lovesong:

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones

The rest of Lovesong can be read here.

“There is no better way to know us
Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.
Now neither’s able to sleep — even at a distance
Distracted by the soft competing pulse
Of the other; nor able to hunt — at every step
Looking backward and sideways, warying to listen
For the other’s slavering rush.” ~Ted Hughes, A Modest Proposal