4.27.2007

Rupert's Reference

In honor of National Poetry Month, some perky ta-ta's, an old poem by my own self:




MARGARITAS

Beri is the funniest girl in the world.
Kathy's been a little depressed.
Josie's just gotten off work
counseling rapists and pedophiles,
and because it is still the March
of my thirty-third birthday,
we're sitting on the patio of El Toro,
drinking grande margaritas on a Tuesday night,
discussing the elusive concept of sober sex
while our waiter runs the chips-and-salsa
relay so he doesn't miss a word.
For Josie and me, newly single after a decade,
like planets slung off our axis,
and Kathy, of ruler-strict Catholic upbringing,
sex intrigues us like a foreign language.
But Beri, married for more than four years,
is having a hard time remembering sex at all,
its permutation of limbs, its wet rock and slide,
though she pretends, and doesn't know I see
she's counting under the table--
best I can figure, it was Christmas,
Charles's tired stocking stuffer
offered up like a diamond necklace.
Josie says it takes three martinis
to forget the day's fun accounts
of rodents and rectal thermometers;
Kathy needs five beers on an empty stomach
to get past god, his son, and the holy ghost;
and I'm thinking half a bottle
of a decent dry white, I'll relax a little
about the popped balloons of my breasts,
the post-caesarian belly battle zone
my husband traded in for a twenty-year-old
with a moonpie face and perky ta-ta's.
The waiter smiles a young Spanish smile
that tells us he understands this English perfectly,
understands our need for extra sour cream,
and suddenly, we're appreciating the fit of his apron
over tight black jeans, the neon sombrero
glow washing over our enchiladas,
the low night rumble of practical sedans
burrowing back to the suburbs
like guilty fathers, and the clear constant moon,
with its gathering of all things oozing and flowing,
that keeps us glued together. We've fallen
silent as the empty fishbowls,
in which swim our dreams of love
in dregs of salt and citrus, when Kathy says,
You have to really trust a man to have sober sex.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Went out for Mexican last night and thought about margaritas with the girls in Atlanta at El Toro and the El Azteca on Ponce. Great memories. Glad that sober sex isn't a problem any more and five beers on an empty stomach would probably put me in a coma.

More good memories - Sharon just called from New Orleans. They're at Jazz Fest waiting for the Subdudes to start. Van Morrison will be playing later. 80 degrees and breezy.

Tania Rochelle said...

I hope they get to see some chubby ice skaters while they're in N.O--bitches.

Mary Campbell said...

LOVE your writing.

Anonymous said...

great poem...pretty much covers it from every angle, although i've never offered up a "stocking stuffer" in place of a diamond necklace( or a diamond necklace, for that matter!).

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