that you belong to me.

RUDE AWAKENING

The first time I saw Clotilde,

she was standing in the window

of an Amsterdam brothel,

her negligee discretely buttoned

from head to toe,

so I had to use my imagination.

I liked that, liked how she beckoned me

with one long, scarlet fingernail.

“Follow me,” it said and I obeyed.

Before I met her,

I taught high school English in Rapid City

and coached volleyball

and most of the time

I didn’t even think about my nights

lying alone in bed, smoking,

watching the red lights of my alarm clock.

Last July, I got an insurance check,

because I wrecked my car

and I decided to use the money

to do some things I’d always dreamed about.

My buddy, Art, the Assistant Principal

and I went to London, Rome, Paris

and I allowed him to harrass me

into going to see the prostitutes of Amsterdam.

He said, “Frank, are you a man?”

I answered, “Yes, I am,”

and so we went to take a look and look we did.

He was sensible.

He partook, but did not take out

more than he put in,

but then he didn’t fall in love

and have to spend so many nights

waiting for his beloved to get off work

and do for free what she was paid to do

simply because she loved me

and not because she wanted my money.

I swear there was nothing to make me suspicious

and it was so exciting with her

that I did not acknowledge what I knew

deep in my heart

and so in my mind escaped total complicity

in the thing that came to be my ruination.

Clotilde’s gone now,

she’s just the breeze

that chills me this autumn afternoon

when instead of teaching,

I’m lying in bed, trying to understand

why I chose to accept the disgrace of losing my job

and not to fight, not to present myself

to the school board as a victim of her deceit

as an answer to the complaints

about the company I was keeping.

Art, being the SOB I’d once mistaken for a friend,

decided to tell the secret

I had not failed to share with him,

so overcome was I by passion.

I never thought we’d end our friendship

over that thin, slip of a girl

just because she had a penis.

I ask you, what is wrong with the company of men?

If I had read the guidebook that said,

“If you visit one of the women,

we would like to remind you

that they are not always women,”

I wonder now if I would have faced it all sooner

and left my darling back in the window,

posing as if for a Rembrandt tableau

in which a slightly overweight, middle aged man

pretends to practice the art of letting go

and does not notice

what is so obvious to those

whose vision is not obstructed