When She Stripped
I was surprised
there were no piercings
or tattoos, needle marks,
or tiny razor blade cuts.
Not even stitches or
old wounds from
a surgeon or deranged lover.
She looked surprisingly normal.
Her poems and letters
had been exquisite diaries
of deviance with sex a device
to buy crystal meth.
A home broken by two
absentee drunks for parents
and a brother who’d touched
her over her pajamas
when he thought she was asleep.
Her letters and a phone call
had told me all this…
I expected a cross between
Courtney Love and
the Marquis De Sade.
But it was all imagination,
she’d tell me later.
She thought as a writer
I’d appreciate that. I have to say
it was a bit of a letdown.
So was the sex.
We had both drunk too much.
I had problems with the condoms.
Fuck it she said. We lay there
and smoked, conjuring large,
while clouds that were perfect.
At least something was.
©2022 Rp Verlaine All rights reserved.
Rp Verlaine lives and writes in New York City. He has an MFA in creative writing from City College and taught English in New York public schools until he retired. He has several collections of poetry including Damaged by Dames & Drinking (2017), Femme Fatales Movie Starlets & Rockers (2018), and Lies From The Autobiography 1-3 (2018-2020).
Cajun Mutt Press 