Have You Ever Faked an Orgasm?

Peacock, Molly (1947 - 0)

Original Text

Molly Peacock, Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002): 181.

1When you get nervous, it's so hard not to.

2When you're expected to come in something

3other than your ordinary way, to

4take pleasure in the new way, lost, not knowing

5how to drive it back to sureness ... where are

6the thousand thousand flowers I always pass,

7the violet flannel, then the sharpness?

8You can't, you can't ... extinguish the star

9in a burst. It goes on glowing. That head

10between your legs so long. Could it really

11want to be there? One whimpers as though ...

12then gets mad. One could smash the other's valiant head.

13"You didn't come, did you?" Naturally, he knows.

14Although I try to lie, the truth escapes me

15almost like an orgasm itself. Then the "No"

16that should crack a world, but doesn't, slips free.

Publication Notes

Original Love (1995)

RPO poem Editors

Ian Lancashire

RPO Edition

2004

Rhyme