bloom

Sometimes I think molly bloom was onto something
when she said theres a kind of kiss that almost paralyses you
draws your soul up from your feet and into your mouth
when he pulls you to his body on the pier the boats rock silently
and the lights of the city are watching your reflections on the water

Ive always wondered how a man knew to write like that like how
did he even know what it felt like to be a woman crushed against a man
feeling thrilled and scared but also kind of like a heroine from a movie
only for the next moment to have the bottom drop out of your stomach
when you remember that you are a person too and he doesnt know

did joyce know when he wrote that line that a hundred years later
a girld be cornered in a dark stairwell at the university during lunch
and there would be a man telling her everything women think or do
is all in that blue book right there and molly cant be touching herself
because her Yeses are for his pleasure not for some girl with glasses?

But I guess molly doesnt really say much of anything does she
and we really only see her from a mans point of view because
you know when the book tells us its her voice its really a mans voice
putting words in the mouth of his full amoral fertilisable portrait
of a perpetually warm wet welcoming Yes of a body, O!

Ive only been kissed like that a handful of times in all my life
literally swept off my feet and ragdolled into limp submission
and it was sometimes a thrill in the moment for a moment
but molly please have mercy on my soul for asking or wondering
for just a moment if you or I or we all ever said Yes at all