I'm Not That Girl

I'm not the girl who couldn't resist
Martin
while I was dating Bill

or the girl who ran off with Ralphie
after Roger learned 'Creole Belle'
on the banjo, just for me

I'm not the girl who walked away
from you
and never looked back.

I'm not that girl
Anymore.

You Can Get There From Here

if you take 59 out of Douglas
on up to Gillette and north into Montana

The ZZ Top Road Show: destination
Miles City

Who knew 40 years ago that
your whiskey-brown eyes would
remind me of Omar Sharif -

or that you'd look that good
with your shirt off

Noted.

Missy - Size 9-10

'Brown fat looks better than white fat,' she said,
that summer in Wisconsin when we took
towels and Bain de Soleil up on the roof-
basted and baked ourselves -
we looked great that summer.

My friend was plump, as we used to say about
pleasingly round girls - plump
like soft pillows, with
dimples in their pretty knees,
and maybe their elbows

Girls with curves
and possibilities
Blond and pink with China-blue eyes, or
dark and sultry, smoldering
with Mediterranean mystery
and a little flesh on their bones.

Something to hang onto,
girls of substance.

I envied them...they had
cleaveage.

Now I'm built more for comfort
than for speed
and the sun damage
is traced across my face, a map of summer afternoons
on the roof, days at the lake.

Barring the spectre
of melanoma,
I cherish every sun-soaked
rooftop hour, every orange tube of
Bain de Soleil, every day spent
at the lake.

Summer of '69
Best ever.