I’ve only ever had threesomes:
Myself, my sexual partner, and some third thing that hovered over and between us,
Like netting cast against mosquitoes,
Except the mosquitoes were my own mind.
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Well, not exclusively threesomes:
My purest sexual experiences have been with friends,
Times where the pleasure was something which flowed from our friendship,
Like an activity we engaged in together because it was fun,
Like going for a hike,
Or playing cards.
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That third thing–the one which constitutes my threesomes–is like a spire;
It is a fantasy which tells my partner and me whom or what we are to become.
The spire whispers:
Man and woman are a sacred pair.
It preens:
Child-rearing is a sacred duty.
It coaxes:
Have you considered the potential tax breaks?
As a vision, the spire congeals us such that we fail to discover who, in fact, we are,
Instead seeing only gauze,
Only the play of image atop canvas.
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Community is the true third way.
It is a bond in which man and woman, themselves,
Evaporate,
In which two can become three, or four, or five,
Or an infinitude,
In which interior sperm and egg give way to exterior comet,
And to the milky slur of the universe,
The all breeding the all,
Humans themselves the saplings.
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Are two meant to raise one,
Or are all meant to raise one another,
Like branches giving consecutive touches as an egg dropped from a bird’s nest spirals to the floor?
Being so touched, the egg will reach ground not only softly, but smoothed from these accumulative embraces;
This upbringing will be a more nourishing and holistic affair than if only one or two parents had attended,
Delivering their insecure lesson.
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We are all one another’s parents; we are all one another’s friends; we are all the warm transfusion of the all.
Jackson Holzberg Buckley 