Don’t you want to be seduced?

An Explanation Always Follows by June Jordan

Rose and ivory roses open among
us
at breakfast/the roses slope into smoky
crystal of the silver-tipped vase

carved mahogany
chairs with weathered leather
seats
hold the sleepers upright

Slicing a small peach the older
man with steep
European accent
pops
a morsel of the peach into his mouth

savoring the fruit he
does not masticate the morsel
quite discreetly/I
must avert my eyes or
witness the entire process: tongue
teeth and peach enmeshed
degenerate

Now comes volunteer explanation on allegedly
famous porn districts in Germany
(The Reeperbahn in Hamburg
brewer’s yeast and potency
yesterday’s sperm count)

the older man
before cracking into soft-boiled eggs
(and balancing the knife in his right
hand with only four of the five
fingernails apparently
clean)
looks up to query my
increasing reticence

“Why,” he questions me: “Don’t you want to be seduced?!”