You stuck your hand right down my throat and yanked on my heart strings.
“Dance,” you said and (zap! pow! zing!) it did, like Howdy Doody,
Simple-minded and freckled in my youth. I thought of walking
into the pounding surf of the sea,
Or else bounding from a window or nearby bridge, if
That’s what it took for you to find me more interesting, not just another jerk,
Out to cop a quick feel. No, I wanted it all, your educational background,
your political views,
Your opinions on sex and morality, your body next to mine sometimes
when the dawn
Cracked open and the sky was “red” like a book.
Years later, I remembered: the slap of reality
Like putting my foot in the wrong shoe. It hurt. Millions of times
I wanted to say, “I like you, honest,” but it was already too late. Had you
ascended to heaven? with the loot
As Kenneth Koch wrote in his poem “We Sailed the Indian Ocean for a Dime.”
Probably not, but once when I was driving to Mississippi
On a lonely stretch of piney road, I thought I saw you in the clouds (you were one of them)
Making love to another man. I didn’t mind, not that, nor the stories, nor the rumors,
Nor the gossip I heard about you, nor the boredom I could expect for several weeks to come.
I was just happy to see you again, no matter how sordid the circumstances
of our, uh, specious existence.
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