Oh, Oh What A Girl

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

Blundering, daft and dulled by the blistering heat, maybe –
a scorcher of a summer it was that year,
so we drank all the more freely – but nevertheless
we chose that special time to mix our magical elixirs,
to swap pollen and potions and sundry poisons,
anonymous syrups and thoughts
and we scratched sigils of desperate meaning
on each others' rabid electrified hides.
We sweated rhythmically, you and I,
and, unfortunately, we coupled guiltily.

We pleased one another under the weeping willows
for a long, long time on ever so slightly damp grass,
hoping that the barely gurgling stream would provide
a little cooler air for us to wallow in while
our respective partners slept the blissful sleep
of not knowing - but, of course, it didn't.

Poised, fragile and condemned
yelling fuck it fuck it fuck it all at once
we bled and cried and rejoiced,
for what shouldn't have been was,
you have to admit, as near as damn-it perfect.

Your flower opened beautifully under
what poets used to call a gibbous moon,
but the moon, the moon, oh, bugger the moon,
the moon and the music and the laughter and
my potent serenade in answer to your hungry call
didn't bloody well matter -
though you thought it was romantic, lass,
that was the drink talking,
and it was the last thing on our minds.

Your breasts, your breasts, your mighty breasts
and your skin - your lustrous, slightly oily skin as smooth
as the finest silk and as black as polished leather
possessed me for weeks, months,
perhaps, Eloise, forever.
“You ain't a man 'till you've had some tan,”
you told me that night. And on reflection
it's true, you know, I wasn't.