Music is like Sex by Peter Fernbach

Music is like sex:
The second we’re done,
Lying around, smelling faintly
Of fried food, we realize
There is little else in common.

The wind creeping, whispering
Through this little gutterbed
You call an apartment reminds us both
Of the basal requirements of art:
Food, sex, shelter, and for anything
We vaguely define as success
One might hope for financial support.

These moments, saturated with eternity
That we think of later - developing photos
Or sweeping floors or delicately crafting pastrami
Sandwiches like they were art installations -
Are rich bubbles on a sea of sorrows.

But after the ritual and the rising, we’re so far away:
The stale sub that almost vibrated off the counter
Is absurd: it’s alive you say, and we laugh
Not at the joke, but at the audacity of this steak
Sub, drooling oil and mushy onions
To call itself food.

This far away
Nourishing the physiology of other-than-body
Is so much closer than touching.


Author bio:

Peter Fernbach's poetry has recently been published in Amphibi, Bat Shat, The Literary House Review, and Blackheart Magazine; and, his most recent full length collection The Blooming Void, BlazeVOX Books, was published this spring.