A man is bending his wife. He is bending her
around something that she has bent herself
around. She is around it, bent as he has bent
her.

He is convincing her. It is all so private.

He is bending her around the bedpost. No, he
is bending her around the tripod of his camera.
It is as if he teaches her to swim. As if he teaches
acrobatics. As if he could form her into something
wet that he delivers out of one life into another.

And it is such a private thing the thing they do.

He is forming her into the wallpaper. He is
smoothing her down into the flowers there. He is finding
her nipples there. And he is kissing her pubis there.

He climbs into the wallpaper among the flowers. And
his buttocks move in and out of the wall.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Russell Edson's poem Conjugal

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