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For the Men
by Starlite Motel

Over the speedway of years,
I gave them haircuts
that defined their own mystique
as clear as jawlines, and forever after
helped them lift their five-o'clock shadows
higher for the peony faces of women in bars.

I gave my own two eyes
that mooned and dimmed romantically
with the thrust of each new fable
they would bring to bed, and

black leather jackets
of self-confident machismo
badder-than-you-bet-on Bad Boy
to zip around themselves securely
before ripping off on mostly
imaginary motorcycles
of sleek indifference.

I served
ten hundred clumsy dinners
spun from the mongrel Italian-slash-Nabisco
kitchens of my upbringing,

and danced,
too often beer-glazed
in leopard prints and tall tall boots
at house parties where my tits
were strapped in tighter to my chest
than my dumb heart, which looped
like hopeful pigeons, for
the leftover caramel corn
of the lead singer's
absent smiles.

I must have scraped
so many pulpy bits
out from inside the fruit
of my own self. I have spit out
psychic trading cards more easily
than kids swapped Joe Palooka
once upon a 1950's time.
I think now, when I'm counting,
of the scant cards I have been given

as I listen
to the whistle of a new boy
as he assesses the condition of his hair
beneath my shower head. Meanwhile, I
sit on the couch alone.

I'm listening
for the sound of pigeon's wings
to herald new and passing
wheels of motorcycles
in the street outside.





 


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