7/14--Aftertaste

Aftertaste

A broken heart can make anyone a sponge.
Faceless and asexual,
the guru of the coral reef.
A patient samana
(if only to be
such a beautiful word).

So I kissed a stranger last night
(the only thing I remember was that his hair was nice
it was blonde like a surfer’s swell
but it couldn’t be in this Midwest bar.)
We kissed behind a blue plywood door
if only to get the aftertaste of you
off my tongue
maybe this one would lift the curse you put on me.

Mine was a fate much like a rape victim
or a stray dog.
You are the only story I can tell
repetitive as a romance novel formula
(girl meets boy
girl goes against her coy feminine instincts
and falls in love.
best friend seduces boy.
boy gives girl shards of hope
best friend finally claims boy with a lease
boy rejects girl
girl resents boy)
and so on.

Like this I open the same wound like a Christmas gift
quickly, I tear away the paper to find the same gag:
the same rotting apple cores
the same damage
the same look of disappointment as the neighbor boy
laughs in his folding chair.

Lately I entertain ideas of new characters to replace you
a guitarist with no arms
a bored housewife turned cross-dresser
a hip lesbian with a parrot on her shoulder
some girl named Catastrophe
but you always creep in with your key of D (slightly out of tune)
and blue work shirt (slightly unflattering)
and your glasses on my dressing table
and your Dutch master nose.
It all shows up in the doorway
as I drop the bleach rag on the tile
or spill a bowl of olives
I cross out paragraph after paragraph
strophe after strophe
but you reappear again.

(sometimes when someone asks my name
I can’t reply with anything but
‘I’ll never tell…’)