ON THE EVE OF ALL SAINTS DAY
Maybe we weren't the greatest love story ever
written,
but you should have stuck around to see me bending over,
back broken from the telephone cord,
after you called from Pennsylvania to tell me you just couldn't go on lying,
you couldn't face me in the rain,
that you just couldn't let me touch you down there anymore in that way;
the way you would flip up your skirt to tease me with the view of your sheer panties.
The guestroom was ours when your mother would go pick up the pizza,
the rain pelted the window panes,
it always felt like someone was watching us touch each other,
explorers slashing a path to the temple of passion,
falling over cliffs unseen from the thickets and tall weeds,
a couple of amateurs willing to risk it all for the glory of reaching the orgasm first.
A lesson learned,
I guess,
and you assumed
that your crying phone call would save me a little face after all that you put me through,
the erased bank accounts,
the two extra boyfriends,
the forced smiles,
and your sheer panties that you would slip on just for me,
just for kicks,
the ones your ex-boyfriend bought for you the last time you visited him without me
knowing,
and still you couldn't come up with the courage to come back to town,
head bowed,
to tell me,
to show me,
that he had proposed,
you accepted and that it was over.
---Kevin Keith Allen ©