if my vagina had lips to speak

so when my non-English speaking husband says to me

i love your pussy

i know he learned it from porn which then takes my mind off

the sex we’re currently having and then i think about why men say

pussy rather than vagina and how i hate to even call the penis anything

let alone penis or anything in between

all the while i try to maintain porn-face so as to avoid thought face

 

and no i’m not a prude

but maybe i am

 

society teaches us words, then we re-learn them, they become taught words

that are not teachable because they are not reachable or usable or even remotely

identifiable, thus the list of synonyms.

and i use them now for poetic purposes and for my memory because one day when my vagina is old she will not remember all the names she could have been called when she was younger and spritely:

cunt, twat, punnani, mound, beaver, vah-jaj-jay, coochie, cooch, cooter, who-who, snatch, muffin, who-ha, va-geen, va-jean, sucker fish, lady bits, box, clam, honey pot, slit, slip, snapper, tuna town, flower bud, rosebud, and dugout.

 

some say funny, but i don’t look at my vagina as funny

or anything that wants to relate to funny

fun –yes, funny –no

 

so when my husband who speaks enough English to say pussy, cock, tits

compliments my vagina

i ask him to call her vagina, tell me he loves her, marry her, and give her the amount of babies she wants and not a single one more