She Refuses to be Good

She refuses to be good,
takes tea instead with a heavily tanned man
who does not know Plato
but is living proof of Darwin--
all experiments are conducted in enclosed spaces,
all human beings take off their masks and an animal
voice replaces the low hushed timbre
of polite conversation.

She refuses to be good
even as she sings to God.
Disrespectful of the ‘home’ of skin,
she resurrects instead the ‘throne’ to skin
and finds grace in the curve of her neck,
the flex of a toe, erasing from memory
the past for what she now knows.
                       
*

I know God has seen the 
skin stretched taunt over the head 
of an erect cock.
I know God has smelled the scent
of a cunt in first flush,
and painted its roseate
color in the evening sky.
I know God gave us language
and bid us well,
but if pleasure connotes sin
perhaps we all need to start again.
 
She refuse to be told
what satiates skin
is the subversion of soul.

© Coleen T. Houlihan
First published in Clean Sheets.