Different Reactions to the Loss of Virginity
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
I
A young man wakes, not quite as slow as spring,
From love’s first night. The groggy bulb begins
To swell and open in his brain. A wing
That barely senses, yawning, stretching, wins
An intimation of the meanings he
Might find. He vaguely knows that he has lost
A thing quite like a girl’s virginity,
But not. Unlike a girl, he feels no cost,
Not really. She has paid with blaring blood
But he has paid out only off-white seed.
His waking into manhood is a bud
That opens painlessly. He swells to need.
..He isn’t sure that he wants April love.
….He guesses he wants more of aching shove.
II
This hardening is more like winter strength,
More like ceramic hardened glaze that’s cold,
But unlike it, unbreakable. Its length
Will grow and harden through the seasons. Bold,
His springs and summers will increase in greed.
He knows this, but did not. For eighteen years
He sensed this. Now he knows this manly creed.
He’ll live it, strong as seasons, and if tears
For others come like winter’s biting rain,
He’ll still require the beauty that he had
That first night, urgent pleasures, whether pain
For them results or not. It isn’t bad.
..It’s natural as a bursting tulip flower.
….It’s natural he should exercise male power.
