Where Is Home?

Humans can never know it all.
Not even with ju-ju, gris-gris . . .
I hoped Adore was wrong. She was not old,
at least not for me, but what did I know
that my body did not eagerly learn?
I hated leaving her. I was in love
with Adore, who was twice my age.
I was afraid I had waited too long
and now she would die before I told her.
But why would she care? She knew already.
Words from my lips were still kisses,
and as she said that, she pulled me to her.

The flight back, the cab into the city.
Cathleen was gone, her partner said,
loose ends to tie with her Paris design:
They paid her way just for her approval.
So she drove me to California Street.
I let myself in, two keys on the ring,
one for the Morgan. In Lagunitas
I checked on the house and my Ford Falcon.
If I sold it I thought I could be through
with the highway south and east to get here
and no temptation, should Adore, alive
still, ask me to come home to be with her . . .

That was not like her, she would never ask . . .
Just the same, randy tonight, I drove out
to Bolinas. No one knew me down there
and if I found a woman I could fuck
I would bring her all the way back to fuck,
we could stay in Lagunitas and fuck
until Cathleen called to say she was home.
Once I arrived, got acquainted with one
woman well enough to invite back home,
I lost my nerve. I would be too weary
to please both of us in such a short time
that would likely be interrupted then

by the phone which left us too little time,
even if we scurried, to get her home
and I knew only the long way around
by the Point Reyes station, down the coast road
and back before the phone would ring again
and she’d ask what was taking me so long . . .
So I drove through Bolinas and tracked back
to Sausalito, and Betty was home.
She walked to the Trident to have a drink,
told me she was spending tonight alone
and if I wanted we could walk back up
the hill and fuck all night and half the day . . .

(22 June 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander