TFLN POEM - Admiration, Allowance

Hey.

Here's the www.textsfromlastnight.com poem of the week.

My goal in this is to make something touching and gentle, something earnest out of, what at first glance appear to be very glib texts of wantonness or debauchery.  And that's human nature, sure, to joke. But I'm trying to use these fictional poetic narratives to imagine what life might be like for the people behind these texts. What they're dealing with. How they love, or hurt.

Here we go!

(585):

Dude of course I want to. Your penis is beautiful.

Melody,

I protested. There’s an order

And an equivocation to the dark.

A more humble, earthy self seeks shade.

While my baritone bravado hummed inside my ribs,

I cradled, I celebrated her shadowed, silhouetted form.

The tug of her gentle, sun-spotted breasts, the thin scars

Whispering below them.  

Way her nostrils pinched when she breathed,

As if flirting with the welcoming breath.

We’d been dating – three months,

Was it four?  - And she tickled me

With a practiced ease, she dared me:

May I take a picture?

And I jerked, without reason,

Like a slice of butter in a skillet.

Shivered, and fought the sensate drive

To hide.

You know who I am, I said.

She expected this. She gripped

My shoulder, took out her phone.

Lights came on.   Stunned to purpose.

Before she left the bed, she whispered:

I do.  You’re the shape of my desire. Know that.

Shook, I shook. I softly curled every muscle.

Carved out tears. I did not deserve such witness.

She stroked the thin, brown hairs on my legs, and with picture

After picture, framed our companionship,

This composition of rusty beauty.