date

June 3, 2023

UNUSUAL

I recall it wasn’t as cold as usual
that early November evening, I
was standing nervously on the small deck
in front of the Indian restaurant.
This was going to be my fourth
first date of my lifetime, not
surprising in the abstract, unless
you realize that put me on an average
of one every twelve years.
Fast forward almost three years
and I am standing on the wood floor
of the grand hall of a once great mansion
slowly reciting my vows, looking
at what I assumed was as close
as I would come to seeing heaven.
That was nineteen years ago
and as I stand here there is nothing
I would have done differently
save doing it all so very,
very, very much sooner.

January 28, 2022

LAUNDRY LOVE

In the older romcom movies
there was often a meetcute
taking place in a laundromat.

I have spent far too many hours
in laundromats when traveling
on extended business trips.

I found one in Santa Cruz
with a coffee shop and figured
it was where romance would bloom.

I spend more than a few hours
watching but while the coffee
was always pouring, an espresso

or cappuccino hissing away,
I never saw a couple form, a date
offered, just a dryer tumbling

hopes and dreams, as they
withered in the heat, awaiting
the lonely basket home.

December 31, 2021

NYE

As a child, I only wanted
to stay up until midnight,
actually a bit after that time,
to see in the new year.

I didn’t need to be
at my parents’ party, it
was too loud and the adults
behaved more like my kid
brother and sister as
the magic moment approached.

And it was supposed to be
a magical moment, although
no one could tell me
why that was, or what
made it special other
than turning a page
on the calendar.

I no longer try
to stay awake until midnight
on New Year’s Eve
having long ago learned
I don’t’ want to be around
adults acting childish,
and knowing January 1
is no different than
December 31, save that
I will miswrite the date
on checks for at least a month.

July 1, 2021

THEN, NOW

It was easier then, so let’s
go there, the spring of 1970,
the location is less important,
so long as it’s a coffee house
where those barely old enough
to drink, or barely short of that
age congregate, waiting for
something to happen or, I
seriously hoped, someone,
someone with little hair, but
who carried James Joyce in
his jeans pocket, Portrait of
the Artist the only Joyce to fit.

I had thought of Ginsberg or
Corso, a better fit, but too
intelligentsia for this audience,
and literature was not my purpose,
although I hoped they did
not know that, or if so, would
not hold it against me, at least
until after a first date and sight
of me in my Air Force uniform.

I did succeed that spring, so
my efforts did bear fruit, but
50 years, and a failed marriage later,
let’s instead go back twenty
years, to an Indian restaurant
where being a poet fit neatly
into the hip pocket of my jeans.

First appeared in the South Shore Review (Canada) Issue 2, Spring 2021

February 14, 2021

FIRST KISS

You ask me if I remember
when we first kissed, and then add
and what was it really like for me.

I know the answer you expect,
and I am reluctant to tell you
otherwise, but I have to be honest.

It was moments after I left you
at your door on our first date,
having found my car finally
in the parking garage near
the coffee house downtown.

I had just gotten in the car
to drive to my apartment
in the distant suburbs, and
turning on the ignition, I
kissed you passionately
on the lips, all eyes closed.

And, it was wonderful, though
the kiss we shared in reality
later that month put it to shame.

January 24, 2021

A NOVEL IDEA

If I were a character in a novel, say
by Kawabata, that evening we met
twenty years ago, I would have
placed my hand lightly on your shoulder,
and I would have felt a heat,
embers of a passion that would,
in hours, leave me consumed by it.

I was a middle-aged, soon to be
divorced man on his first date
in thirty years, imagine a teenager
knowing what not to do, but with no
idea of what to do save chatter
and periodically gaze at his shoes.

I was, as the evening progressed,
bold enough to take your hand,
and hoped that my fear and anxiety
might be mistaken as romantic,
or bold and daring, anything but
the reality that was consuming me.

We’ve been together twenty years,
and as I read Kawabata again, I
recall those first moments, but
in this revised edition it was
your passion I felt in that first touch,
a flame that consumes me to this day.

February 10, 2018

ETA

I can assure you I will be there
one week from the date I
was supposed to arrive, not a day
sooner and only possibly a day later.
If, by any strange chance I am not
please feel free to contact me
immediately at the number
I have not given you and won’t.
And if you cannot remember when
I was supposed to arrive, that is
perhaps because I have never told you,
but rest assured I will do so
immediately upon my arrival.