Nin Andrews

True, I have no idea what you are like in bed. Yet I'mconvinced I need only lean back in my chair, gaze out the window and inclinemy thoughts toward you to remember it, as if it were yesterday, the nightwe spent at The Top of the Town in Detroit, Michigan, staring down at thecity lights.

Or was it several night in Paris, or Venice, or Toledo,Ohio?

Perhaps that first time, you were wearing an Hawaiianshirt and those lime green pants you can barely squeeze into. It was onlyfive o'clock in the afternoon. All day I'd spent dressing and undressing. 

How I worry about our love-making. I who know so littleabout such matters. Were my kisses tender enough?  Did I, as the street-musicianplayed the harmonica outside our window, unzip my azure dress, my breastsfloating away as two clouds in a brassiere, sailing out the window andinto the Grand Canyon on a gondola?

Even the irises quivered in the breeze. Seeds of albiziablew across the sidewalks. When I touched your face, I said, I havenever been seduced before. Then I bit all the buttons off your shirt,and spat them across the room like seeds. I took off your socks with myteeth. 

I didn't rush you, did I? 

Were you turned off by my voluminous violet underpants? I never could find them again. Perhaps you could mail them back someday. 

Afterwards I slipped out without even saying goodbye,wearing the jacket from your Pierre Cardin suit and your wedding band,which I tossed to Marcel, the mustachioed bellboy with hair the color ofhoney. He slid it on his ring finger and blew kisses as I sashayed outinto the night air.

Shivering, I turned once and tossed a handful of pebblesat your darkened window, calling your name. Later I dialed your room, butyou must have already left. And without even a trace. 

How splendid to have loved you at last, though it seemsI forgot to ask: when you whispered, there is one thing I forgot totell you, neglecting to finish the sentence, what were you going tosay?

from Ploughshares