NPM 8/30: Waypoints
Waypoints
There’s a stage in each flirtation
when you stop imagining the object of your lust
in bed, the backseat, shower, looking up at you
with her mouth full. You do this in a kind of
thrilled expectation.
There’s a stage in every courtship
when you stop scrubbing the pit-stains and the sooty feet,
the hot sweat, darker hairs around the lower back and navel,
probable blemishes after a weekend’s Chinese take-out
from your fantasies of her, object of your tenderness.
You do this as a form of commitment.
There’s a stage in every serious relationship
when you stop thrilling over what she’d never say
in bed, the coarse roughness you play with
like badger cubs practicing their coming kills
all the perversions that give you the feeling
of the only rooster in a county full of coops.
And secret thoughts become easy to tell, you concentrate
on getting what you can and giving what you know to give.
You recognize this as contentment.
There’s a stage in every breakup
when your flirtations with another
stop feeding on the sizzling yolk of anger
you’ve cooked for the object of your injury. Suddenly
another girl shows up, and she is not defined
by being so unlike the last. You recognize this
like a long apology.
