Too Nice

Under the windmill you had me
and rejected me in that
devastating way young girls have.

We’d talked of books and music;
laughed, teased and touched; found
so much to love together
except love—because
love was something you couldn’t afford
since men paid good money to take you out
and all you had to repay them with was
your body. So the man walking his dog saw
two teenagers kissing in the birch trees on the birchen head,
and missed the sad irony of
love besmirched:
by what? That you called yourself a slut?
I wanted that slut so badly, yet all you saw
was an empty purse and a boy who was
too nice.