The second
time I saw her
she walked
into my room
and saw
the mattress
on the floor
and said Jesus
Christ
you still live
like a hobo.
She threw
down
a canvas
messenger
bag filled with
protest pamphlets,
and porn from
Holland and
poems by
Baudelaire
then kicked
off her shoes,
Tom's,
and pulled
a shapeless
cotton dress
up and over
her head
and slipped
into bed next
to me.
Twenty and three
my junior
her skin was
cream and goodness
her hair
the color of
an Irish girl
named Maggie's,
her eyes of green
had already
given up
tears.
Do you have a drink?
she asked
and I passed
her what I had.
I am not
like the others,
she said,
not sad
or lonely
I am a writer,
a poet,
like you,
but better.
It was the closest
I had been to loving
in a long time.
We wrote a hell
of a story
before she
moved on.
She was a writer
and maybe
a little broken,
like me,
maybe better.
