She shudders when I touch her skin, her body speaking
Honestly as her mind misdirects her lips. She's twenty-two.
I'm sixty-nine. We bargain to attain our ends. She wants
To see her picture in the paper in the sorts of places women
Of her class can't go. She wants to have a legal claim to all
The money that I've made (she's dull; she doesn't realize that
Years with me and all that cash will leave her just like me,
In time), and my desires, similarly, aren't exactly chivalrous.
I want her on me like a diamond stick pin, want my stuffy
Peers to fantasize beside their wives, and, honestly, I'm
Looking for a way to stiff my spoiled kids. I worked like
Hell to make this money. All they did was ask for more.
With one on Saint Moritz, the other passed out in a hut in
Bali, I wish I could watch them shudder when they learn
That their inheritances now are pledged to her.