A Poet Reflects

the first thing you learn about desire
is that it does not wear down with time.
there comes a time
when you can no longer get your pleasure
but the desire stays with you—
a dampish kind of feeling
beneath the armpits
at the back of the tongue.

—Brenda Marie Osbey, from “Desire and Private Griefs” in All Saints (Louisiana State University Press, 1997)