GUYZ NIGHT OUT
My friend told me
he’s got to move, the space
rent-free but the ceiling
so low, he bumps his head
when he’s having sex or
when he’s making love.
Much younger than I (or me,
as even educated Brits say),
he’s old enough to make such
fine distinctions. I joked,
“Rent-free? When I was
your age, I would’ve died
for a coffin, rent-free.”
Two happy drunks, we
discussed interspecies romance
& our issues with intimacy.
Right now, my wife’s glaring at me
from the couch. I’m worried
she wasn’t grateful to the
cop who drove me home.
—from Rattle #62, Winter 2018
__________
Jefferson Carter: “As a poet, I’m an opportunist, not a writer with a project. Whatever tickles my fancy I write about, an exhilarating evening out with a poet friend or a dream about my younger sister. In grad school, I fell in love with Jonathan Swift; forty years later, I still must control my satirical bent to shield whatever is tender in my poems.” (web)
