Sex Odalisque

by Hailey Leithauser

                     Pity the still of the sitter’s
    routine, recumbently stuck in her dull rapture rut,
                   par for the course, and no
worse for the wear. What static, vacuous labor
     it takes, to stretch out a couch, to keep a look put,
                     the de facto embargo

            on rising or sighing, not to fritter
an itch, not straighten a slouch or tuck in a foot
                   but to remain so ably, so
       complacently lush, contained and unstirred,
                   attained and untouched.  

 

Hailey Leithauser’s work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Antioch Review, The Journal, Meridian, Subtropics, and Poetry. (9/2011)