Poetry: May/December

Photo by Magomed Shapiev for Scopio

{First published in Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, March 2023}

Looking from you to me,

hotel clerk doesn’t see the man 

I see, as you fumble 

with water, pain pills

(your back, a grid of frayed wires). 

Reservation lists one queen. 

We’ve had directness: 

So, are you her ... father?

(That was the bank clerk.)

So, what’s your relationship?

(That was the doctor.)

Encounters you prefer not to 

remember, though we laugh it off. 

I hope they don’t arrest us, you say,

our bags now on the floor, 

taut, white sheets pulled back

on the bed.

Head cradled on a pillow, your features

are still the middle-aged man I remember. 

Wizard in the classroom,

playful at deconstruction

(or destruction, perspective depending)

gesturing like a tangle of clothes hangers

unforgettable.

Sometimes with eyes closed

I make love to that younger man

because he is my age 

because he is you, 

same gravelly voice whispering

Goodnight, my dearest. 

Different cadence, though, 

different energy. 

Office floor, no bed,

books and papers everywhere akimbo,

upper-story window uncovered 

so oaks peek in—since fantasies are meant to be

illicit. Not that I thought of it back then. 

Not that I would tell you now,

except perhaps in a poem.