Saturday Night

You staggered me, of course, with
Your good looks, the sight, the smell,
Of youth. I watched you walk, so
Serpentine, and thought, though
Wrongly, I suppose, that that walk
Was for me alone. It wasn't, was it?
You were walking for the younger
Men, and I, in gray, a thing unnoticed,
Like a flaw upon the plastered wall,
Could watch, but had no right to
Speak. The boys would squirm
And flatter. You'd disdain and
Look away, and where'd you look
Next, but at me? For father, lover?
I don't know. You ask me for a
Cigarette. I ask you for something
I've lost, and, slowly, we become
The stable compound no one
Else can see: the beauty with
A crippled ally, some old man,
Who wants no more than to have
You upon his arm as he goes back
Into the bar to brag while also
Staggered by his fantasies of what
It's all too clear can never be.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 73 times
Written on 2014-04-04 at 03:17

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