and not just with the bottom-feeders, the trough-eaters.
I am the jam to your jelly, loverboy,
and I write you bullshit love-letters on restaurant menus and bathroom stalls.
I hear the change in your pants pocket, can nickel and dime your libido
as skillfully as any back-alley Aphrodite – I'm your 'x marks the spot', baby.
My brilliance as a schoolgirl rebel debutante
would stun you.
I ride the motion of the ocean the way we ought to,
i.e. on my own. A ménage a moi, really, but I don't mind.
I can't complain:
I've been able to trace your hidden wallet, even when you stash it in the damn freezer.
It's gratifying that I can always
wake up before you, slide out from your side of the bed, down the fire escape.
Soon, an early morning liquor binge, white sun breaks out,
I roll over on my ego. I am atomic, so radiant that I melt your eyelashes.
I'm a siren humming filthy lullabies into your ear. An enigma of my age -
but I don't have to be.
A few years ago
I saw you, leaning against my apartment building, swaying like a broken ladder.
And the night before last you pinned me to the wall, plucked orchids from under my skirt,
my thighs buzzing, neon lights; your callused hands, rough as the sidewalk we stood on.
