Taking you to the new train station

on this gray day––its stainless angles

of steel against brick and glass––I

talk about almost everything, I

suddenly remember the two a.m. grit

of the old Albany, and I’m sixteen

and waiting in a café for the next bus

to carry me to the Berkshires.

 

The drunks are all joking loudly

at the counter, and the neon

lateness burns my eyes.

An old man, a lifer from the Navy,

invites me over to crash.

He knows I can’t get out

until six.  

So I go to his

place which has only one

bed.  I’m not queer, he says,

as he takes off his clothes

down to his boxers.   

It’s a double bed,

and I figure if I keep my clothes on

and lie down way over on my side,

things’ll be okay, but he drapes

an arm across my chest

and a leg across my leg . . .

 

    I wheel

your suitcase down to the train,

and before you get on,

I look at your golden hair

graying a little like mine.

 

I want to meet your children,

kick your husband out of bed,

drape myself across you

like that old grubber of a sailor

who only wanted the warmth

of a body beside him––not even love.

 

 

 

© Tim Mayo

________________________________________

First published in Four Corners (2004) & reprinted in The Loneliness of Dogs (Pudding House Publications 2008)