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He'd have to climb four flights
and so arrived out-of-breath,
leaned over the rail outside.
I could hear him compose himself
like a sheet of music rustling
on the piano, a tune well-suited
for cranky audiences, allegro,
coda, encore and I taught him
everything about letting.
Letting it come, letting it go,
letting it fold over and back again.
The door opened to the kitchen.
I owned a full set of silver spoons
and knives, copper-bottomed
pots and pans I bought
thinking it would make me want
to cook. I didn't realize the zing
has to be there from the get-go.
It doesn't just announce itself
one Sunday with butter
for a brûlée and steamed milk.
So I didn't cook for him.
Maybe that's why we broke.
Though every time the split
felt false as fractured bone
that some intern resets with tongs.
He was always later than I expected,
twenty-seven years old
and never enjoyed a blowjob.
What were his women doing wrong?
I was sad for them then,
thinking of the last brunette's head
below his belt, had she knelt,
had she not looked in his eyes?
The first time it was a procedure,
lying flat, he looked at the ceiling.
I didn't break out any tricks,
the shocker, the bedroom rocker.
It was as simple as coloring in
the lines, a little red here, some pink.
I recalled my first go-down
with a man who had a girlfriend
and kept pushing it at my mouth
like a fork, open, open, until I did
and he told me I was the best,
and he thought I had been around,
and I didn't correct him.
This one with his hands at his sides
looked terrified, his teeth clenched,
the collar of his button-down
cinched at the neck. He removed
nothing but his pants, and before
the glory glory he stopped
because of a condition, I can't remember
what he called it, a condition
whereby he needed candy bars,
he needed to play with the red ribbon
from my hair, he needed to be
a boy again, wearing his pants.
Of course, he got better.
He was very good by the end.
And I hope this poem finds
his new brunette: What you have,
I gave him that. Don't be sad.
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