Author Information
At The Reunion Of Former Friends
[for Lady Jolene]
I
At fourteen years old, best friends forever
without a clue as to what forever is,
we told ourselves we were learning to kiss
in anticipation of the courtship of boys.
We learned, instead, the feminine (together) bliss
that neither did not rely on the courtships of boys;
the desire without words that expresses
itself in exquisite kisses and caresses,
casually slow, achieving much
with a final, deftly deployed, touch.
At fiften years old, more questions than answers
divided and conquered us, such that even
our surreptitiously ardent pleasures
failed to ease the sullen sense of betrayal.
II
Initiate, adept, and, finally, priestess
to every god whom fashion brings to Rome,
she counts her age by the numerous images
clustered about a makeshift shrine
(small chamber of mirrors with smaller incense pot).
I asked her (long after the lost, last of our desire)---
to which of these gods' presences was she destined
(she does not know);
to which of these gods will she turn at her death
(she does not know).
She said with her recently acquired, world-weary smirk
that none of her gods had ever been crucified,
I agreed (to her brief surprise) and then suggested
that none of them had ever been alive enough to die.
Starward
[jlc]
