KAROLINA ZAPAL

Ethics of Sexual Attraction

In 2012, Eurêka! Productions ventured to Kraków

.             to “probe the Polish sex drive”

.            .             and “investigate sexual practices and values

.             in a country widely perceived as a bulwark of Catholicism”

Julie Carr asks Pauline Oliveros

.             about the ethics of deep listening

.            .             The ethics? She would have to say eavesdropping

.             They did not interview people in rural areas

“. . . the relatively long average amount of time

.             spent on foreplay and the attention paid to women’s desires and tempo

.            .             in bed suggest that Polish society is not burdened

.             with macho attitudes”

You write, We have just been writing

love poems, but still you pass them through a wall

“Law” and “wall” scratch

.             They have similar textures

I chew on them like a watermelon gum lump inside

.            .            .            .            .            .             or just my tongue

February 27, 2013 Matthew comments on the study:

sooo true! Polish women are hard task masters who demand

excruciatlingly [sic] long foreplay, o [sic] so I have learned

from a very small sample size

.             At least he can acknowledge it’s small

“The crew hurried to make their next appointment

.             in the tiny village of Koniaków. Renowned

.            .             or the quality of its lace, the women of Koniaków

.             have provided altar clothes for churches across Poland

.            .             for generations, until some of them recently decided that lace

.             thongs and frilly underwear would be better

.            .             money spinners”

Laughing of foreplay quality

.             Men insert [sic] when they listen to women

.            .             My desire for you is textured

.             I think that means        tortured

.            .             Do I have a quality body

.             for deep foreplay

.            .             Flowers are SO Catholic

My seduction routine involves telling men I hate

the words “cute” and “fun”

.            .             They like a challenge

even of language

I complimented him but he said I was fawning

.             A toss-up between servant and dog

.            .             in terms of how I wished to win favor

He opted for “dense” instead of “pretty”

.             It’s nice to be liked for something

.             other than my body

Makes sense but pretty

.            .            .            .            .          sure he meant “complex”

Karolina Zapal is an itinerant poet, essayist, translator, and author of two books: Notes for Mid-Birth (Inside the Castle, 2019) and Polalka (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018). As an immigrant and activist writer, she writes frequently about her native Poland, languages, borders, and women’s rights. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Rumpus, Painted Bride Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, and others.