Lisa Marie Zaran The 2River View, 4.4 (Summer 2000)

Reflections on a First Date

She stammers
a lot, and it's
kind of endearing,
but you can already see
(or hear actually) how
eventually it would get on your nerves.

How some day
you might take
a fist to her face
or a firm hold
while she's bathing
and maim her lung
with bath water
adjust her body
to a bloated corpse.

Suddenly, you realize
you could spend
the rest of your life
behind bars, selling
pieces of yourself
for cigarettes and yard
priveleges.

So, instead of asking
her out on another date, you say
we'll have to do this again sometime
and she nods, her head bobbing
up-and-down up-and-down up-and-down
like a plastic jack-in-the-box and the music
starts pounding and your palms get itchy,
but you hold it in while she makes her escape,
while she closes the car door and it's like closing
a lid on an otherwise, what could have been,
a relatively pleasant evening.

CoverPrevious Poem

2River All is well.