Poetry Corner: A View From Across The Trenches

I was tooling around on Google the other day trying to find the poem "When Man Enters Woman," because I really like the final image. I mistakenly thought it was Sharon Olds--it's in fact Anne Sexton--and thus discovered an ACTUAL Olds poem that I didn't previously know:

Sex Without Love

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
Gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth, whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

I myself have wondered at those who have sex exclusively within relationships, so it's interesting to have the favor returned.

Having never seen the poem before, I'm still trying to parse it. I would call it "not unflattering," certainly. I enjoy the religious imagery--that resonates--and am intrigued by the athletic metaphors. I relate strongly to the idea of sex making something of its own (aside from procreation), of taking us somewhere. But really, the poem speaks for itself; I'll let you enjoy it.