The Power of Lawlessness: A Close Reading of Denise Duhamel’s “Lawless Pantoum”

 

Lawless Pantoum

Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals,
as long as the animals are female.
Having sexual relations with a male animal
is taboo and punishable by death.

As long as the fish are female
saleswomen in tropical fish stores are allowed to go topless.
Adultery is punishable by death
as long as the betrayed woman uses her bare hands to kill her husband.

Saleswomen in tropical fish stores are allowed to go topless,
but the gynecologist must only look at a woman’s genitals in a mirror.
The woman uses her bare hands to kill her husband,
then his dead genitals must be covered with a brick.

The gynecologist must only look at a woman’s genitals in a mirror
and never look at the genitals of a corpse—
these genitals must be covered with a brick.
The penalty for masturbation is decapitation.

A look at the genitals of a corpse
will confirm that not much happens in that region after death.
The penalty for masturbation is decapitation.
It is illegal to have sex with a mother and her daughter at the same time.

To confirm what happens during sex,
a woman’s mother must be in the room to witness her daughter’s deflowering,
though it is illegal to have sex with a mother and her daughter at the same time.
It is legal to sell condoms from vending machines as long as

a woman’s mother is in the room to witness her daughter’s deflowering.
Men are legally allowed to have sex with animals—
why it’s even legal to sell condoms from vending machines, as long as
everyone’s having sexual relations with a male animal.

 

© Denise Duhamel. Reprinted with permission.

“‘Lawless Pantoum’ was written after an e-mail forward about the supposed laws governing sexual conduct in Lebanon; Bahrain; Indonesia; Guam; Hong Kong; Colombia; Bolivia; Liverpool, England; and Maryland, USA.” (from Two and Two).

 

Leave it to Denise Duhamel, known for her hip mix of pop-culture satire, political skewering, sex-is-in-the-details insight and bent-but-recognizable form, to get so many of those elements exactly right in the poem “Lawless Pantoum.” Where some writers might work up an angry head of steam to point out the ridiculous, Duhamel uses hyperbole and humor, and implies, without banging anyone over the head, that laws written by people in power to impose their brand of sexual morality on the rest of us backfire much more often than they work.