The Wounded Nymph
Will de Kypia
___Sweetie, if you just had some tits you’d be a real fox
___the guy says, big hands cupping what little she’s got.
___Yeah, a bit more on top and you’d turn a few heads,
___awkwardly pushing her onto the rumpled twin bed.
___But don't you fret, everything I need is down there.
___Her abandoned thighs spread, she tries not to care.
___Two strangers breaststroke and backstroke on dirty
___sheets, two hungry bodies turn into pieces of meat.
___She moves, she gives, she grabs her own share:
___ten minutes to pretend she is still part of a pair.
___Hey, that wasn't bad, babe, not bad at all.
___Now I gotta split, pick up the kid at day care
___and hustle back home before my wife gets there.
___He pops the last beer and says he might call.
___
___She loves many men, for a night or an hour.
___Until her busty ex-best friend soul-shifted to
___whore she'd loved only one, wanted no more.
___
___She'd always been smart, with him
___she was clever, felt her mind sparkling
___quicksilver whenever they were together.
___Born to be timid, with him she grew
___wild, and on a warm summer's day
___she decided to stop being a child.
___They were at his cabana, skip-dodging
___the breakers pounding the private beach.
___Accepting a dare the girl dove into the waves,
___then a proud almost-woman rose from the ocean
___and made love to a man who would always be hers.
___If there were portents—___
_____the gulls fleeing seaward in horror
_____or distant thunder warning of storms—
___her adoring eyes did not see them,
___she heard nothing except his voice.
All summer long she soared like a
goddess coursing the heavens, certain her
consort planned to make her his bride.
When autumn came he dumped her.
Their love affair was a sex game played
in the sand and she's a grain of that sand her
sweetheart simply brushed off his hand.
Today she lies alone in a crowded bed
remembering those waited-for words he
never said and dreaming she'd been
his true love instead of his prey.
🌊