Letter to the Gitting Place

by Craig Kirchner

You told me that first night at the pub,

that you slept with every poet in Wilmington,

excluding girls and Methodists,

hating Methodists, but with no clue why.

That night was your pick-up,

I have a monster father-thing,

I’ll take a double of anything brown,

straight up,

 choked on an ice cube once.

They didn’t have a drink to take away

the taste I had of your fresh face flirting.

To your place. Three flights up. I stayed.

Small cunning hands, neck, and throat,

a young Bardot body and look.

Spent weeks watching your eccentricity,

but never felt I grasped its essence.

Talked a lot, you rattled on and loved it –

like ‘Tango’ with more conversation.

You called Jesus, uncle, and had no idea

who Buddha, Marx or Mickey Mantle were.

You told me my cum smelled like potpourri –

at that point I had to look it up.

And your smell – it stuck to my hands,

my sweater, my jeans – it stayed with me

all day and made me feel ripe.

You picked raisins from your cereal before milk,

but if I didn’t buy Raisin Bran you sulked.

It sounds worse on paper,

    you giggled,

take those plump words and turn

those raisins into grapes.

You were like the roof, moving

under the heat of day, writhing till the next sex.

Never stood still long enough to judge.

Suggested a threesome, changed your mind

in the time it took to make a coffee.

We both loved to play,

take holidays you called it.

Remember Saratoga, won the trifecta,

stroked one another and drank champagne,

until they asked us to leave.

You told me I was sensitive,

that you had a thing for poets,

had sensitive matters you wanted to discuss,

but never did. Nor did I ever see you

read anything, only mock the words.

Forget that I’m young and pretty,

fuck me with those angry words.

That I know of I’ve never written angry words.

You left town on a whim, same as you had come.

For years I’d think of you and get hard.

Now I think of you as one thinks of freedom,

or whenever someone mocks the words,

or licks their lips or moves a raisin.

BIO: Craig Kirchner loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. He has been published in Chiron Review, Argyle, Main Street Rag and more than 100 others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. Craig has an interview at Spillword and can be found on Bluesky.