“loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine . . .”
—Walt Whitman
“I trust all joy.”
—Theodore Roethke
I, Erica Jong, in the midst of my life,
having had two parents, two sisters,
two husbands, two books of poems
& three decades of pain,
having cried for those who did not love me
& those who loved me—but not enough
& those whom I did not love—
declare myself now for joy.
There is pain enough to nourish us everywhere;
it is joy that is scarce.
There are corpses piled up to the mountains,
& tears to drown in,
& bile enough to swallow all day long.