The Wounded Nymph
Will de Kypia
___Honey, if you just had some tits you’d be a real fox
___the guy says, big hands cupping what little she’s got.
___Yeah, with a bit more on top you’d turn a few heads,
___as he clumsily pushes 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, not bad at all. But
___I gotta split, pick up the kids at day care,
___be back home before my wife gets there.
___He pops the last beer
___and says he might call.
___Now she loves many men, for a
___night or an hour. Before her busty
___ex-best friend soulshifted to whore
___she loved only one, wanted no more.
___She'd always been smart. With him
___she felt 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 secluded 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 forever 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 it was over.
Their love affair was a sex game they
played in the sand and she is a grain of that
sand her lover brushed from his hand.
Today she lies alone in a crowded
bed, recalling those waited-for words
he never said, dreaming she'd been
his true love instead of his prey.
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