"Sex without Love" by Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is an American poet who is also the author of not only poetry but novels too. Her writing is usually characterized by deep and emotional feeling that leave a lasting impact on the reader. Her poems are known to cut quickly from reality to fantasy and she is known for her precision. She is a modern poet, born in 1942 and attended Stanford University.

"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.

This poem is a modern poem, because the topic is modern. I think today's time is one of the worst where people have sex without love, marry without love and have kids without love. The divorce rating is higher than ever and the nuclear family is not a common occurrence anymore, instead single parent families are considered normal. The author begins the poem with sweet diction, describing these people as "dancers gliding over each other like ice skaters," which gives a feeling of desire. Then, the author quickly cuts to describing them as meat, hooking into each other. Describing the people as meat and wine changes the mood and tone because they are no longer beautiful gliding ice skaters but instead pieces of meat ravenously making love. Olds comments on the issue of the children at birth whose mothers are going to give them away. She means that people who make love without love tend to give away their child because they don't actually want a child, they just wanted the sex. In the next line she stutters and says "come to the come to the come to the," stuttering from what is confusion. A stutter is natural when we are confused, and the author is bewildered by people who make love without love. In the first line she introduced her confusion by asking how they do it, how people have sex without love. Later int he poem Olds makes a connection of someone who has sex without love to great runners. They're both alone; a runner is alone on the road surface running. The partner is alone living a lie, making love without love and trying to pass it as true love for someone, but really they are alone. Although in the world they would be considered two bodies making love, because there is no love present each body is alone and they are alone together. Like a runner, the partner is trying to beat their own best time; they're trying to find real love.