02-22-2014, 03:46 PM
This isn't an Eros poem, I don't think. The title shows the intent: lewd is pejorative. Here, the sense isn't seductive. That is, there's no leadership in the poem. It's all commands.
There are two ways to hear the "voices." One is the speaker and the object are one person. The other is that the speaker and object are distinct.
S1L4's honesty plays against S3L3's lies. Ditto, the notion of womanhood plays against the "adult" themes of the poem.
That said, this is a poem about intimacy, vulnerability, and danger. Nipples defy an unspoken threat to an unnamed value.
My read is that the narrator and poetic subject are the same person. Otherwise, the thought that there are no secrets is utterly unreliable, and the narrator's voice is too naive to admit unreliability.
Critique: There's a sapphic atmosphere here, which is undermined--imho--by the word "titillate."
There also seems to be a lot of redundancy. The commanding force of "do not give me" is obviated by the vulnerability of the subject. It would be like saying, for instance, "I order you to protect yourself, turtle with your armored shell."
A naked woman learning to love her own body, like a naked woman being loved, is super vulnerable. The narrator's order "don't wear sexy underwear" seems not to advance that emotional moment.
There are two ways to hear the "voices." One is the speaker and the object are one person. The other is that the speaker and object are distinct.
S1L4's honesty plays against S3L3's lies. Ditto, the notion of womanhood plays against the "adult" themes of the poem.
That said, this is a poem about intimacy, vulnerability, and danger. Nipples defy an unspoken threat to an unnamed value.
My read is that the narrator and poetic subject are the same person. Otherwise, the thought that there are no secrets is utterly unreliable, and the narrator's voice is too naive to admit unreliability.
Critique: There's a sapphic atmosphere here, which is undermined--imho--by the word "titillate."
There also seems to be a lot of redundancy. The commanding force of "do not give me" is obviated by the vulnerability of the subject. It would be like saying, for instance, "I order you to protect yourself, turtle with your armored shell."
A naked woman learning to love her own body, like a naked woman being loved, is super vulnerable. The narrator's order "don't wear sexy underwear" seems not to advance that emotional moment.