To Save My First Betrayer

(Summer, 1975 - to DV)

you, too, I guess,
should be immortalized,
you with your foreign flairs,
your furry thighs,
and all your river-words
(your liquid lies)
that surged around me,
through me -

true, we
never mentioned
promises, no, never any -
many
sweaty, heavy velvet
dangled hours
were not so silent.

you in me,
such perfect style
and awkwardness in consort
grows to grace.
and how am I
to blotter out your face,
pieced out of the gloom
and hanging hair,
a hovered mask
of pleasure poised and rare
while down your words cascade
(a litany)
and shower
all my opening
like April?

every inch of English
I enjoyed,
every taste Italian,
every ride
upon your board, New Yorker
surfer boy...
too many
pigeonholes.
how could I ever know,
keep track of you,
believe that you would go?

(you at one gulp, too much for my innocent brain,
and meanwhile you had mind-washed me with rain.)

all in all, and always after this,
I think I'm learning what my problem is:
I look at things too simply, can't play chess;
I still think flesh is holy, more or less;
we fit so well, I thought that we would stick;
I want and give too fast, I melt too quick.

I replay all your loving, on and on -
my problem is, betrayer, that you're gone.


Back to Free Reading