Dancing Lessons

Her hand trembling on my chest
and I swear I could hear the bones
rattle as she smelled my breath
for liquor, laughter or reason.
I looked everywhere in that motel
room except her eyes as I swelled my chest
and lowered my voice to a depth of cool.
“I don’t need courage, liquid or otherwise .
We ain’t in high school no more so let’s be
consenting adults and fuck like animals.”


The words badass noir in my mind
more or less how I figured
self pity and misogyny would manifest
since the last time I got wasted
over a woman in a college town bar
with a trough to piss in and a jukebox
where one out of every three records skipped.
Twenty years hadn’t healed the sores
on my chest, brain or cock so I was still
open to a Marquis de Sade style of sinning.


“You don’t need what?”
She asked cupping
her ear with her thumb
barely covering  six inches
of dollar store silver dangle.
Words muffled leave no marks
so I waved her off as the first salvo
of reckless lechery wandered off to die.
“I said are we going to get naked
and fuck the night away, or what ?”

I finally looked at her eyes to see
if the lynchpin of lust had locked
in and she was of the mood.
A sadder pair of pupils this vulgar
voice of vanity has never witnessed.
A dank and solemn darkness within
as if a hidden trap door had opened
swallowing all that was left of her being.
She limped over to her bruised chrome
walker whispering, “a bad idea after all.”

My soul reeked like an outhouse as this broken
mouse of a woman bit her lip to hold in tears.
“I’m so sorry, I whispered,  my hand hovering
by her loins before touching the round
of her ass and she gasped and started to fall
back and I thought maybe her heart gave out
from these lessons of lewd libido and longing
but she cooed  as I caught her quasi limp body,
cradling her from behind as if handling a baby,
her small firm breasts held snugly in my hands


“I’m an idiot. A no good fucking piece of shit ,”
I stammered as I lifted her ninety eight pounds
and placed her gently on the torn stained mattress.
I unbuttoned her white polyester blouse and unhooked
her pale pink bra  licking her B cup breasts till her nipples
stood at attention like toy soldiers but I was no general.
After feeling her pain all I wanted to be was her private
enlisted to do what ever she wanted me to do.
I traced my tongue down her belly between her bony
hips and an overgrown forest of auburn pubic hair

Three or four stray hairs attached like lint
to my tongue but I didn’t brake as I pounced
on the pink of her vagina and licked her
like a sheepdog lapping up a bowl of water in July.
She came within five minutes in hiccups and whispers
thanking me profusely and began to wiggle out of bed.
“ Did you want to leave?”  I asked.
She shook her head slowly so I pulled her hips
closer to mine and we danced the night away.
A new woman. A new man.