Cathleen

Cathleen is in town, she missed him she says.
A thoroughbred, she feeds on him, his cock
in her mouth, his tongue around her anus
searching for entry, this is how love is
with them. Bobby always rises alive
to the weather, sun, rain, wind, the salt air,
ready to sport on the town, seeking rest
where none was before she returned today.
He was dreaming when she brought him alive.
How was Paris? Rome, I came here from Rome.
Did you get an audience with the Pope?
She takes him to their favorite café,
off Fairview, where nobody dined but them,
she held her windbreaker over her head
down the street of potholes to the houseboat.
She fed the cat while he sank into work.
He wrote, they made love, they were young, the rain
attended their mutual skin walking
the boardwalk swaying over the water,
at night the waves swelled, you could hear them wash
against you, and then you saw it was her,
the black hair brushing his belly, her head
between his legs as though that’s where she lived.
The café is not the same. The city
stays beautiful, she prefers sun to rain–
these are her sentiments, Paris or Rome
are too far away to want to live there.
He takes her to the Congress, she sips beer,
he smokes, she asks him not to, he walks out,
flips the cigarette into the gutter,
the trace of a smile when she sees he’s back,
she wants to stay, she wants to hear him sing,
he already played clarinet back then.
It wasn’t long, he reminds her, I wrote,
played my horn just enough to wet the reed,
then asked if you wanted to hear me read
what I had on paper, you always did,
I looked for the voice to fit what I called,
what I learned was, tone. I thought it was song.
I tried to be true, no need to sing words.

(8 March 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander