Articles/Essays – Volume 44, No. 3

Sex Talk Sunday

I sit in a class of virginal twenty-somethings, 
rows of polka dot skirts, shiny shoes, sculpted hair, 

waiting for a stern and nervous bishop 
to deliver the semi-annual sex talk. 

He stands, buttons his suit coat, unwraps 
delicate tissues from a bakery brownie, 

and hands it to the first girl on the front row. 
“Pass it around,” he says. 

While it winds back, he preaches the joy 
of matrimonial union, the dangers of being 

alone in dark places with boys, staying late, 
watching movies horizontally. 

When the brownie returns, he leans in and lowers his voice.
“You see,” he says, “who will want it now?” 

And I’m thinking that it doesn’t look too bad, 
that I’d like nothing better than to push past the bishop

and lick that brownie very slowly. Or better, bite.