My First and Only
Our
first date wasn’t her first date
although
it had been mine.
The
same was true when we first kissed—
a
plan of her design.
Sometimes
I wonder, when we tryst,
what
other firsts of hers I’ve missed:
How
many others know the gist
of
learning love with her assist?
Am
I just one small bit of grist
of
hearts and limbs that she’ll entwist?
When
she’s with others, am I dissed?
How
many more will she enlist?
What
myriads may yet be blissed
because
they’re on her bucket list?
So
many torments yet persist,
encroaching
always, they insist
that
I must ask.
I
must desist!
Perhaps
I’m just a hedonist
with
nightmares that can’t be dismissed.
And
yet, I find I can’t resist
my
only Valentine.
Commence Advancing
A
poem of lovemaking, Valentine’s Day,
without
the encumbrance of metaforeplay.
His
hand in her bra, her hand in his pants
as
he closed the front door at the start of their dance
toward
his only-room sofa, his go-to hot spot
(even
though neither cared if they reached it or not
since
a chair and the carpet were also nearby)
leaving
shoes, shirts, and sundries wherever they lie.
This
wasn’t romance—it was college in spring.
For
her: break-up sex. For him: a fresh fling
with
a girl he’d been plying, a classmate from band,
as
he waited for her to give in to demand
to
partake of a song that had played through the ages—
a
lifeline of poets, disquiet of sages—
the
care he would render when she needed tender
and
sweet loving hope, a fresh need to elope,
or
the rut he would offer to refill her coffer
when
her heart, stripped bare, would take any man there.
So,
desperate from need or to even a score,
she’d
soon cross a threshold she’d set long before.
Her
heart had been broken by first-love’s belief
in
a joy ever-after, when no hint of grief
was
imagined, in high school where true love was born,
but
now, inconceivably, left her forlorn.
Her
first new encounter was followed by more
from
a lineup of others she chose to explore.
In
the end, would she parry the one who’d returned,
hat-in-hand,
broken hearted, confessing he’d learned
what
a foolish and dreadful decision he’d made,
now
despairing of many long months he had paid
in
regrets (staying faithful throughout, while he mourned),
who
in humble contrition asked not to be scorned?
At
last, not long after, she married a fool.
Which
one? Does it matter? They’re just a gene pool.
Admitting the voice of this story is mine,
there’s
a bias of gender that’s left on each line.
Her
tale would be different than this, though aligned,
but
facts underlying are always defined
by
the teller who may or may not have been there—
a
stranger, some other, who may or not care.
Often Upon A Time, Long, Long Ago
I
no longer presume that my wife can assume
“The
Position”—not A, B, or C—
nor
one of those others of my favourite druthers,
the
ones that once best sutra’d me.
I
ravished her once (and a few times thereafter)
but
since then, age ravished foundation to rafter,
and
not just for her but for my aching bones—
along
with some petrification of stones.
When Some Totals Don’t Add Up
I
sing the ways I love my love;
she’s
mute on ways she don’t.
So
many ways which I sing of,
but
sing along? She won’t.
A Valentine’s Day Epitaph
She
loved him fully,
To
the brim.
Her
husband shot
And
buried him.
Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humor in
traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November
2016, he has also been published by Pure Slush, Home Planet News Online,
Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois,
suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, for over twenty
years, usually with rescue dogs and cats underfoot.
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