Cherries Jubilee
We put on Coyote-Ugly
long scrapped for better R and B
and then my pink negligee
long retired
to the sad end of the closet
You, burned out trucker
closet blue-grass ace
from the Ever Open Cafe
sat with the long-stemmed goblet
on your lap
breaking a smile:
You had a stent
in your white white chest
days and hours left, we knew it
That's why we got drunk at the steakhouse
slipped and slid over the ice
to my house
And I stripped for you
a nipple into the Merlot
and into your oh my goodness mouth;
So then. Time for the send-off.
You tipped your ball cap back, looked at your watch
and we stepped into my bedroom
down to our skin
face to face
You opened your eyes wide
to tease me
swung each of my legs
over your shoulders
Be my Kenworth, Baby
you said
That cherry stem thing with your tongue
ran me out of breath
Oh Lord, I' can’t stop, I said
My body in the downhill of rapture
Eighteen wheeler running off the road
Amen, you whispered
grinding against my slick gears
Your turn, old man:
Damn blood pressure meds
You growled
Then oh babied me
And caught your breath
When I downshifted and braked
To keep from slamming into
Your waddling little
Quill-less porcupine.
Don't die yet, I said
We laughed
And out in the pens
Fire and ice telegraphed
Across the species,
Mares heads up, all ears.
Bad-Ass
One day in the cafe
the tall drink of water from Savannah
with all the chrome
Said the run from Ogden to Denver
hauling the U.S.
got to him
He ran blue eyes over me
where I sat reading the paper
he had silver hair and long fingers
and still used Old Spice
In the parking lot a kiss later a call
and then I went to get him
call me millenium man, he said
your sugar daddy of the new year.
And he wore a hard silver six-gun with chamois smooth skin
loaded with an ever-ready cache of warm silverfish ammo
I loved in my holster
where I would yearn and smolder
Why would you drink me down
Like a milkshake that way
he asked
in the wake of a hot first go
half out of our clothes in the kitchen
nice girls don't do that
Nice boys don't let them --
if they want to come back
my riposte
How'd I get under your skin, he'd tease
when I played that song
while he suckled me hard
like a neonate Hampshire
boar.
He'd go no holds barred
until I was on the edge
get up and drift off
to smoke
I'd finish myself off in the dark
with one sympathetic hand
in one smooth glissade, biting my lips,
holding something back
not my heart
He never thawed or flinched
I'm your millenium man he'd say
taking out his comb
he would dress and smoke
and pace and drive away
and here it is again,
the new year, 3 a.m.
The innuendo
And unfinished business
of our bruised mouths
small whirlpools now
in the tide of my blood.
Mon Cherie
Mr. Chamber of Commerce
None-the-wiser
drunk as an owl on the full moon
tells me about picking up a hooker
when he was on shore leave in Paris
"She took me up to her pensione
put a red high heel on a chair
and slipped two little silver balls out of herself
and set them on the table.
I hope you don't mind, she said,
"They glowed in the darkness
Like Pluto and Uranus
while she purred her silky self
around me like a cat.
"What are those for
I asked
a little wet behind the ears
and she kind enough not to laugh
said they keep me tight, cherie
And she was."
I laughed with lover boy
and finished off
his Dom Perignon
It was two a. m. and we hit the sheets
and I bled him of his longing
looking at the ceiling
because he came and went.
and I got there by happy accident
against his cooling haunches.
.
I'd picked him up by Coors light
at the steakhouse
Do you work for Hewlett Packard
he'd asked
because I’d come in dressed
to make a kill
in that silver lame' dress
from the going out of business sale at Ross.
Absolutely not I said,
reaching down below the bar
and peeling off my panty hose,
putting them in his hand.
Not unless you'd call these
software.
One margarita a piece later
we went out to his new Escalade;
Let me lock the truck up, I said
sliding out to the blue Chevy I'd parked
at the back where the cooks hired in
from Guadalajara
on break;
Enjoy your steak,
one I knew called to me in Spanglish.
Is that what you drive?
Nope. My Beemer's at home.
We roared down the late highway;
sparks from his Lucky Strike
flying up from the open window
When he sobered up in the aftermath
he looked at me
with pure terror
dropping me off, laying down
a patch of smoking rubber
to get away
So that when someone
had an airborne cardiac event,
crashing a Cessna into his warehoused
collection of priceless cars
I laughed and toasted him
We were tight, Cherie--it's all right
blowing the smoke from the barrel
of my cooling pearl-handled Derringer.
