Paul Grant

That woman says I should call her, that I must.

She really wants to talk to me, she says,

she has secrets to tell me, and she’ll understand

mine if I choose to tell them to her tonight.

She says she knows what I want, knows what I need.

Her hair falls over one eye like Veronica Lake’s

(an actress whose name would strike no chord in her),

and the tops of her breasts are glistening with what

is doubtless supposed to be passionate sweat

but is probably Wesson oil. She lies on her side

her telephone number and general intentions

spelled out in a four-letter acronym

hovering over the bottom of her teddy.

I wouldn’t touch her with somebody else’s dick,

but maybe I should at least call her.

It’s only $2.99 for the first three minutes,

and I’m over eighteen with a ragged credit card

no closer to being maxed out than my heart is,

and maybe — just maybe — she knows something I don’t.

Probably not . . . but stranger things have happened.

Stranger things have happened to me, as a matter

of pathetically fallacious fact. So maybe

I should call her. God knows, the nights are longer

every year. Maybe I should at least call her.