safe-sex-scented,
guts ‘n glory ‘n all them gory details,
come on, come on with those latex dreams :
–
he’s got a hip-cocked-straddle
gut like a yoga ball,
course, yoga’s that hippie fuckin’ shit,
he was all for the drugs
but that was years back, years–years back.
now he’s got this red-meat-hankerin’,
‘n she’s got bruises,
‘n shifty eyes.
it’s obvious how happy she ain’t,
but she don’t talk about it.
ain’t our business really.
he knows she’s married,
but he knows she smiles like dawn when he tells crude jokes,
that she don’t send him away when he comes ’round.
he’s got this red-meat-hankerin’,
but for all the sinnin’ in him,
he knows fantasies is fantasies.
–
the rest of ’em don’t ever talk to him.
him, he sweats in his honest-to-god kerchief.
ain’t for a full year I know him as a veteran,
they all just call him “the fag”.
don’t reckon I interest him,
seems happy enough to just talk to me.
like it ain’t normal to respect him.
–
“they don’t start that way, you know,
lesbos”
wearin’ a cheap plastic helmet,
‘n cheap bargin bin “cigars”
lickin’ lips ‘n imaginin’ late nights–
percieved moments of clarity
it don’t bother her,
it does, but it ain’t worth her time to let it show.
just another day at work.
“hey Steve, mind the hill on nine,
sprinkler head broke,
about tipped my mower again.
Wouldn’t that be a sight?”
like that ain’t the way the dirty-old-men see her,
her ‘n her partner,
laid flat-backed, platter style.
“somethin’ turns ’em.
bad husband, most like,
turns ’em against it,
but a real man’d treat ’em right.
not her,
she’s got too much bitch in them bones,
too long down the wrong path.”
–
all beard ‘n mustache,
goin’ on ‘n on ’bout a daughter’s friend.
“I was workin’ out in the garage,
‘n she came ’round.
‘what’s up’ I said,
‘I’m in some trouble,’ she said, ‘I need some money.’
well she was right pretty in the afternoon light,
‘well I ain’t gonna give it for free.’
‘n you ain’t had nothin’ as limber as a teen in need,
no sir, no sir indeed.
right, right there, right on the bench.
somethin’ out of some porno.”
doesn’t mention her trouble,
or if she cried during.
–
‘course,
smoke don’t always mean fire,
‘n they make those sugar-cookie candles,
gets me every time,
hits me wrong,
deep-gut-wrong,
there ain’t always cookies.
how’s a fella to know when to be hungry.
ain’t like they teach that in school.
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