Dating in the '90s

Dating is one of our interaction rituals where we test our theories of what will happen to us in circumstances that  have yet to occur. Getting older is the tempered good fortune of realizing how funny your initial notions were in the first place. As usual, we are the last ones to get the joke.-tb

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DATING IN THE 90’s

Little slivers under the nails

 are what I thought about last night,

wood splints and the corroded pinch

of tongue tip to battery acid

when there was no other way

to find out what something felt or tasted like.

I was throwing a pass

 as clumsy as downs

directing traffic.

I complimented

 her on the way

the lights

of the ATM blended

with the blonde depth

of her avalanche of mane.

She was finished

 pressing buttons

 for the night.

She took her cash, transaction receipt

 and card and tucked them all

into her wallet.

 “Ready?” she asked.

 My hands searched

the bottoms of my pockets

 which now weren’t deep enough.

 I told her

 that I was tired and

was going home to sleep

unless she wanted

 to come over and watch TV,”

or “something.”

She said thanks,

 but after months of

 trying to get tickets,

 tonight was a matter

of uncompromised agendas.

But no where as pristine

as the terms of

the gut feeling that

 addresses me in first person

 and babbles headlong into a perfect night

for a long

drink of water

to go with

the bitter pills that were

found  near evening’s end,

amen.

4/6/91