4. The body and you

In agreement with well-established literary conventions, the body (or its parts) can be encountered in the poems that touch upon, often unobtrusively, the topic of erotic love or sensuality. But the imagery is far from being conventional, as if between worship and warning:

I kiss you

and tell you how classic your face is.

You chop a dagger in my neck.

I tell you, Never

plunge it straight in.

Always do it at an angle.

(Shapiro 2017: 67)

Shapiro is an intellectual and sensual poet, and not a poet of emotions. Clearly, feelings (in the readers) can be evoked through sensual allusions, many of which pertain to erotic love. What helps to generate the erotic tension is the speaker's building (pseudo)dialogs with a you (the you is therefore objectified).

For the Sleepers

Cathedral

Shapiro explores the possibility of expressing sound by means of words ("a woman's voice / is a sexual organ / according to the Rabbis ... a woman's voice / is a body part - ALO, 57).

Sensual language is not reserved for erotic poetry. Many of Shapiro's poems pertain to the poet's son, depicting the relation in a way that is emotionally brutal and tender:

To My Son