Independence Night

Playboy Bunny Angle

You were ungodly

in the hazy neon light

and I was dumbly dressed

Badlands, fourth of July

fireworks finished

and business begun

On first pass I was daunted

then sped back unseen 

what was it on that screen?

Everything She Wants

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Every Time You Go Away

Mad at myself, circled round

and stared in my cool way

which was not very

Where had all the boys gone

from the Kennedy Center roof?

at which you smiled, less aloof

Than I had taken you for, though

no less lovely in affability, the kind

of calculation I made at twenty-two

You liked my Mardi Gras beads

and didn’t hate my lime green tee

I liked everything about thee

Drinks with limes and lemons

vodka, gin, cranberry

precious little to say

I was surprised how quick and easy

I got the best man, like

that time at nineteen with Lee

Parting the crowd on the way out

my hand on your back, proprietary

or maybe your hand was on me

Logan Circle, newly charted territory

nicer than it needed to be

handsome, spare, a curiosity

Pimms and soda on an elegant bench, 

uncomfortably

your foot rubbed my foot ardently

You told me about the dairy farm

toy truck stenciled with your name

and your abstract aspirations lame

Cooking at a hotel joint
a joint and some cocaine, but

the night remained abundantly sane

Harnessig heritage with heresies,

dairymen, ministers and attorneys

paintings, oil cans and keys

Your Texas drawl, the arch of your foot

your elegant recline

My tennis tan, the arch of my foot

my muscles defined

We smoked cigarettes

talked all night

and slept in your boat of a bed

July nights in Washington don’t dip

below eighty, so you placed fans

inches away as we worked out plans

I’d had girlfriends

and a senior-year thing with a guy

with red curly hair

I accidentally slept with him 

every night

of spring semester

But you I loved instantly

Not knowing about the paddle boat

or the hammock

or the telegrams to come

How much I liked kissing

and holding hands

and AMTRAK 

Or the fact that you would

spend the rest of your life

with my best friend