soup

ronnie has been
in love with jenny miller
since the second grade.

throughout adolescence,
he had bitten his tongue,
suppressed the unsuppressable,
denied the obvious,
gone stag to the prom,
and even lied right to jenny miller’s face about it

until there was
nothing to bite,
nothing to suppress,
nothing to deny,
nothing to go stag to,
and, ultimately, no one to lie to…

that whole bad trip
had left ronnie feeling–
you know that feeling
where you open the dryer,
and it feels like everything’s tumbling?

anyway, it had also
helped him grow up to be the perfect man–
well, the perfect man
for women who read magazines.

now, twenty-five years later,
after a chance meeting,
ronnie is waiting
outside jenny’s apartment,
ready to take her to dinner,
feeling uncomfortable in his
no-contact jacket.

at the restaurant,
he orders lobster tails,
fresh from maine;
for the lady, he orders a glass of water,
with a little salt.

they talk for hours
and hours
and hours
and hours…

and finally go back to her place
to talk.

laying on jenny miller’s couch,
ronnie finds out that
it wasn’t the girl
from his childhood
that he was in love with,
but who he always thought
she would one day become.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 3:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.