To say there’s a bit of sex weaving its way through this latest issue of The Journal (issue 41.1) would be too crass, too shallow, and only somewhat near the mark.

Poets Miguel Murphy (p. 18) and Adam Day (p. 66) are turning sex around (yes, all puns intended), turning it sideways (literally, you’ll see), making it new yet familiar, painful yet pleasurable, and you’ll be conflicted, unsure if you should be smirking or feeling guilty when it’s over. Then you’ll go back for more, wondering if you should but unable to stop yourself.

And don’t think you can slip away into some prose when someone starts reading over your shoulder. Kathryn Nuernberger’s nonfiction (26) will turn on you in pleasing ways as well, bring even more meaning to what the French call, “the little death.”

There’s much, much more to be loved in this issue but this is, after all, just a tease.