Dating Mike
It’s as much a shock to me as
it is to all my high-school friends.
It’s quite embarrassing –
how he strides up the hill in baggy jeans
and still wears a gold dollar chain round
his neck – even though he’s in his forties.
But he’s a tender lover and I’m
learning not to be so superficial.
He’s softly spoken and likes to
play-fight in bed, takes me through
jab cross jab and the correct angle, in slow
motion, for ear-biting –
like this, he says, his head drifting
down toward me from above,
mouth open and teeth like a
gleaming white cloud.
We laugh a lot in the evenings,
roll-boxing in the sheets.
And it surprises me how deeply
upset he is to catch me showering
fully clothed, with one of my
classmates.
I beseech him – No Mike, no! Look! I’m fully
clothed and this guy? Who? This guy?
He’s from my poetry group!
But he’s having none of it.
He’s spent enough time languishing with a
nobody at the ass-end of the world. He’s off
back to the States, rattling his
dollar chain the whole way home.