My Job Right Now

1.

As a boy,
and as a young man,
I seldom had the guts to do what I most wanted,
which was to make love to girls.
I know there were times when a girl wanted me to.
Once in biology lab, we had to pair up,
and I was brave enough
to ask cute red-haired
Marie
to be my partner. We even went out soon after.
We took her car.
She let me drive.
We drove all over southeast Denver that night.
I don’t know what we did other than drive.
Marie talked a lot.
We must have been drinking something—
beer, I suppose. At one point,
Marie had me drive to the cemetery in Aurora.
We got out in a dark spot. I’m sure
that my job right then was to kiss her and take her clothes off,
but I somehow couldn’t get down to it.
After a while
we took off in the car again.
She kept talking (mockingly) about licking a
strawberry ice cream sundae with a
cherry on top.

2.
(Barcarole)

Now as a poet,
I must be braver than I ever was as a lover—
to sing memory
in the (limping) measures of my verse.
If memory consents.
But I know that memory wants
to be rocked to these lapping strains forever.
I must not
be reticent or shy.
I must not hold back.

December 2013