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Three
Poems
by Michael Estabrook
Technically
Speaking
To this day I wonder
if
she had dated any other guys
in college, like she wanted
to,
how far she would have gone with them.
Even though she
and I were still
(technically speaking) boyfriend and
girlfriend,
had been so for 2 years already,
would she have
let these other guys
hold her hand or put an arm around her
waist?
Would she have permitted any kissing:
soft and
quick
or hard and long and deep?
For example, if
Don, her big,
macho football player friend,
who liked to
walk her to class and study with her,
had worked up the
courage to ask her out
would he also have found the courage
to
put his arm around her and try to kiss her?
And if so would
she have
gently pushed him away like she did
to that blind
date of hers
as he moved in on her
in the back seat of his
friend’s car?
Or instead, because she was
after all,
rather fond of Don, her big, macho
football
player friend, would she have
been receptive to his
advances
and not discouraged him?
Would she have closed
her
pretty mink-coat brown eyes
like she does when I kiss her,
and
let him press his hungry mouth
over her mouth as his brawny
arms
surrounded her sweet delicate frame
pulling her in
closer up against him?
He would be a fool not to try,
she
was so beautiful after all, almost
her college’s
Homecoming Queen that year.
Yes, I wonder how
things
would have been if she had let other guys
into her
life and heart and if
I would even be here today if she had.
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So
damn beautiful
They didn’t ask her,
they couldn’t ask her,
to dance with them or go on dates
with them
or to do anything else too personal
simply
because she was so damn beautiful.
Do you know what I
mean?
Does it make any sense?
You know how, if
you’re a guy
at a dance hopping with strangers,
like
at your first mixer away at college,
and you’re so eager
to meet some girls,
you want to mingle, to fit in,
you
survey the landscape carefully,
scope out the girls like a
cheetah
picking a meal out of a herd of sleek antelope.
Like
the cheetah, you don’t pick
the strongest and most
beautiful of the antelopes,
because she will surely outrun
you, turn you down.
You do not want to wander over,
muttering
under your breath,
“Would you like to dance?”
Only
to have her give you a sideways glance,
scrunch her brow and
shake her head,
a disdainful look crossing her pretty
face.
You do not want to get shot down so quickly.
Well,
that’s what happens
when you go after the real beauties,
the regal girls,
the girls every guy wants. So instead
you
choose one who’s pretty,
but not a knock-out beauty
to
up your chances of success.
That’s what used to happen
to Patti.
She was so stunning, the boys
would pass her
right by, thank God for me.
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Maybe
Go
ahead, go, go out with him.
You’ve been determined
for
quite some time now to try some other guys
to go out on dates
with other guys.
So go, go ahead, go out with him,
go out
with them, all of them if you need to,
go out and have some
fun,
all the fun you need, you deserve.
What’s
his name?
Where are you going?
Oh never mind, I didn’t
mean to ask you,
I should not be asking you,
I am sorry
about that.
It doesn’t matter anyway.
I don’t
need to know.
It’s none of my damned business
afterall,
shame on me for asking you in the first place.
I
don’t own you. You don’t belong to me,
even though
our song is “You belong to Me,”
you don’t
really belong to me, I know that,
you never have and never
will.
You don’t owe me anything.
You are your own
girl, your own person,
you belong to you, not to me,
and
you can go out with other guys,
any other guys you want.
So
go ahead, go out with them,
with the other guys.
I’ll
be all right, I suppose, although really, truly,
I know it
doesn’t matter how I am,
how I feel about the whole damn
thing.
It does not matter if I am fearful of losing you
to
someone else, to some guy better than me,
it doesn’t
matter to you, it shouldn’t matter to you,
truly it is
my problem, all mine, so –
if you need to wander, if you
must,
if I am not enough for you, too bad for me.
You
need to do it, obviously,
you need to explore your options,
need
to be with other guys so go! Go! Go ahead
and have at
it, have some fun,
do what you need to do to get it done.
I’ll
be here, I should be here anyway,
waiting for you right here
in your dorm lobby
when you are all through – maybe.
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