The woman
in her bikini
loves my poems.
We see her Insta-
profile, Katie
XXX, note she’s managed
to read all thirty,
in less than
half-a-minute;
and you play
it Captain Obvious,
say she’s always
half-naked
in her pics, as if
genitalia,
a pair of nipples,
make up 50%
of the body,
her arms and legs
and waist—
merely tallied
to the total
of a tithe,
being somewhat
more liberal
with her face,
while in the back,
her thong that’s
up her ass
is once again
an equal share.
And I wonder
if she concurs,
if she divvied
up the fractions,
if she made it
past third grade
math, thinks a dollar
off a dozen
is the greatest
deal on eBay,
maxxing out
her VISA
on a line of
skimpy swimwear,
to don around
some poolside
in Miami,
reading Wordsworth,
Whitman, and Wilde,
maybe lumping me
in with the greats, awaiting
my future verses
with bated breath,
will put a pause
on the sex
with Raoul,
the second her phone
begins to beep,
devouring poem
after poem
after poem,
her emoji hearts
that follow
saying to the world
I’m not half-bad,
a middle-aged
prodigy,
with decades more
to pen
my magnum opus,
that at 60
years of age
it’ll be
2084
before she sees it,
having taken that
ultimate step,
finally reclining
in the nude—
bestowing a scanty
quintet of stars
that say it’s perfect.
