Monthly Archives: May 2017

Man on the bus

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Back when I worked at Charlie’s

on Broadway,

in Seattle not in New York,

I got it for once from both sides –

the dreamy looks and jokes,

the ever-in-my-section, thumb-rubbing-

fingers like the promise of money –

and the thing itself – big tips and a

206- just for being me.

The money part’s the part that made me not

mind it overly much – though I’d hustle in and out

when it was a group of guys,

with their hush-before-arrival and

giggle-when-I-was-gone.

They could hope for their

“maybe later at the–”

where I’d never ever be. And so

it was nothing, nothing at all

until one day on the bus I

looked at a girl and she looked at me

till she looked away uncomfortably

and got off the bus.

Only then did I recall

the man who’d scared me off

with that same hunger on that same bus,

and thus became clear

what was ever clear to a girl:

Men will ever be menacing,

and I will ever be of them.

How certain loves could have gone

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There was the one of castaways on the island,

how he’d have not have had her

except for that island and his being the

alternative to no one –

and of his having been dumped by her

after “love” followed by rescue.

Then, too, there was the older man of money,

once handsome but now well past his prime –

and her,

and what won’t money buy if you’ve enough of it?

Well, except for actual love.

And so now I’m wondering about that kind,

and how love has gone,

and what that has to do

with what I’ve to say here.