FIRST DATE
He told me about his drinking,
about his deep fascination
with the inner workings
of his own mind
that has come to
replace his drinking
now that he—one day at a time—
no longer drinks—
God, grant him the serenity
to come to believe ….
I stroked his head, his scalp,
I ran my fingers through his hair,
which was as long and blond
as he was tall and fair
and thin—just my type—
running on like a type-writer
coming to the end,
the bloody end of its ribbon—
a mouth full
of lettered white teeth.
“Well,” he finally said,
Aren’t you going
to say something, anything?”
“No. No,” I assured him.
“You’ve said enough.”
WEIGHTS
This is a poem
for all the men
who’ve spotted me
at the gym—the men
whose breathe I feel
on the back of my neck
as they urge me on
to one more repetition;
the men whose crotches
I push my buttocks against
as I perform one more
perfect squat. “
Breathe,”
the men intone.
“Exhale,” say the beauties.
“Inhale,” say the beasts.
I love them all.
Steven Cordova’s full-length collection of poetry, Long Distance, was published by Bilingual Review Press in 2010. His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Callaloo, The Journal, Los Angeles Review, and Northwest Review. He reviews fiction and nonfiction for Lambda Literary. From San Antonio, TX, he lives in Brooklyn, New York.
