Phases I

PHASES I

By JCSTREET © 2004

I never wooed the beautiful girls I
wanted only
wickedness and quirks and
by turns
the humble and exalted there was

the white trash phase I

see her now
threadbare cotton dress
bowing
over the sink
submissive and receptive showing
the smooth white sand of
thigh above stocking the
white Woolworths garter belt the
white cotton panties turning
grey from washing
against dull glass
down at the creek the
cheap white cotton bra no
pretension at all no
artifice no guile but
a whimper
yes a whimper as I touched
the clear fine bone of her shoulder
with finger palps dancing
one molecular distance from her skin so that
my touch electric
was felt capacitively and then
dancing the fingers lightly down her upper arms

Quiver!

raising the fine hair off her neck and
touching my lips
to the virginal whiteness underneath

Moan!

my
breath of life wafts in
around her ear
resuscitating memory

Sigh!

she asks
“wan’ me to lift my dress and take down my panties?”

EDIE!

not the first—the second, you
don’t need to know about the first the second

WREN Edie – Womens’ Royal Canadian Naval Service she was
tall and skinny
delicate and unsure but
yearning it was
in the back of a taxi from Digby, Nova Scotia
back to base
that I first baptized my fingers in
that piscine font and
later
in Moncton, New Brunswick it was
during the Cuban crisis my
direction finding equipment
filled the room—today it would
sit upn my desk
but I found them
those missile meanies and
in the dark of dawn
hitch-hiked to her door after Daddy
had left for work

that was the coupling and crying out I was
so new but even then
learning the sea-salt sere taste

although

another time when she said
do what you did last night I said
“Wash first”

Today!

the taste of anchovies is cunning feral on my tongue I would
do her now in a heartbeat a
New York minute a
Samarkand second did you know that a jiffy
is real?

it is 1/100th of a second, so

in a Jaffa jiffy, there
were more

(this poem was inspired by blueskybeauty – just a brief exchange on the board coupled with my rumination over her name—my recollection that I had never wooed beautiful girls—I had left that to the jocks—those whose fulsome testosterone would bald them at 40, wrinkle them at 50 and kill them at 60—while my more arcane hormonal mix would guarantee longevity unless I descended into the drinking of

*Pulque is a milky, slightly foamy and somewhat viscous beverage made by fermenting (not distilling) the fresh sap of certain types of Maguey. Any other beverage made from distilling the cooked Maguey is Mezcal, and if it is manufactured in the Tequila region from a numbered distillery, it is Tequila. All three drinks are made from different species of Maguey, often called the "Century plant" in English. The Maguey or agave are all members of the botanical family Agavaceae. Only one species of Maguey is allowed by law for tequila production, the agave Weber (the Blue Agave). There are many species that can be used for good mezcal, and six or so varieties will yield the basic juice for flavorful Pulque