Stuart Watson

Orgasm Gap

Newspaper headlines make me horny.
I haven’t even finished my coffee when I learn
that “The ‘Orgasm Gap’ Isn’t Going Away for Straight Women”

and at first, I heave a sigh of relief (heaving sighs just one of my best
erotic techniques), but after further manual stimulation,
I realize that however true – statistically,  that is – a headline

like that begs a stout and throbbing response, me talking here
not about what you might think, but in reference to a public
and civic-spirited perambulation with a sign

offering “free orgasms.” A gap is invitation to provide. 
All that emptiness inflames the spirit 
of civic generosity that spills from my tongue,

or wants to, giving guy that I am,
milkman for orgasm drought relief at any passing
or urgent, insistent, five-alarm, doorbell-ringing

opportunity. Johnny Applesauce, at your cervix.
Let me suggest a “Howl-0-Ween” for she and he, 
me going door-to-door with my overflowing

bag of headboard-banging treats. Headlines such as that 
always insinuate imbalance, but water always levels
itself, given time and proper topography, so refrain,

por favor, from castigating my virtue as craven self-interest, 
lest you offer first a little evidence that male partners of orgasm-gappers 
haven’t tried our best, perhaps even for hours, and finally 

given up in the interest of a good night’s sleep, a pleasure
enjoyed more frequently by women, at least heterosexual
partners of men who lie awake at 3 a.m. wondering

how someone of her gender can sleep at all with only two or three
orgasms while he, given physiology and such, declines 
in aging torpor to savor his lone climax, limited by age 

and diminished recuperative powers, modern chemistry 
notwithstanding, one of two orgasms to which he is entitled monthly
by the ravages of time and pneumatic malfeasance,

lying in the dark and wondering why his tongue 
has yet to detumesce, and what he has to do
to earn an analog for her blessed snoring sleep.