Sharon Olds (born November 19, 1942) is an American poet. Olds has been the recipient of many awards including the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980.
THE CONNOISSEUSE OF SLUGS
Sharon Olds
When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those greenish creatures,
translucent strangers glistening along
the stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe
the odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the ends,
unerring and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped with pleasure to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.
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THE LINE
Sharon Olds
When we understood it might be cancer,
I lay down beside you in the night,
my palm resting in the groove of your chest,
the rachis of a leaf. There was no question of
making love: deep inside my body that
small hard lump. In the half-light
of my half-life, my hand in the beautiful
sharp cleft of your chest, the valley of the
shadow of death,
there was only the present moment, and as you
slept in the quiet, I watched you as one watches
a newborn child, aware each moment of the
miracle, the line that has been crossed
out of the darkness.
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TO YOU, FROM YOUR SECRET ADMIRER
Sharon Olds
I love the conversations we have
after making love—of course it’s just me, making
love to myself, talking to you,
loving you—though I do not really
know you, so I guess not loving you—
craving the dream of knowing you.
“When will I be able to scream with you?!”
I moan. “I am screaming, I am screaming,” I moan, very
quiet. Afterwards, breathing in
the fragrance on my fingers, I tell you that
I love the smell with a tender love, it is so
sweet, so nectar, as I’ve loved with a strong
love the smell of semen, with those
working animals in it,
those snapping rippling tails! I want
to go with you
somewhere I have not
been—and just lie, in a bed
for days, sometimes eat, sometimes
swim, I am so tired of not looking at you,
I want to gaze at you with a day-long
gaze. The barriers down! The doors off their
hinges! After coming, and coming,
as if with you, I miss you more.
I want you hour and hour in my line of
sight, I want to sing with you to
dance with you and sleep with you in the
still (sho dote’n shoby doe) of the nii-iiight