I Query You

   by Susan Stevens


Interminably. You haven't the heart or mind
to think it ensnarement, mere wryness, or intrusion;
from you I get answers, and yet more.
No one has taken the onslaught like you–and yet more:
Your gaze which provokes these selfsame questions
turns inward with practiced inquisition.
Soon, neither knows who raised the question,
only that to extract the answer is mandatory.
Better to extract words than seminal fluids,
to insist instead on the progeny of our minds,
something we each can have when (finally apart)
we don’t have to put it on a plane or bus
or inflict with vitriol or split ethos.

You are spilling over to me now, fast,
I cannot have enough,
your answers stun me like paradox, like deserts– 

Always the questions.
We are troubling the slackness of other men and women,
their sans souci. When I stop asking you, I shall be extinct;
when you choose not to answer, you’ll be gone.
As man and woman, we meet our sensuality in the business of living.