A Note About Her Poem by RIC BASTASA

I ALWAYS think that she is more beautiful with her dress on
when her hair is hanging free down to her waist like words in a
flowing poem,


but she prefers the usual mode of seduction by undressing herself
slowly and when she has nothing on she walks towards that steps of stone leading to the famed hot spring
at the foot of the extinct volcano

and then she plunges her body
like a young fish,

there is nothing to imagine,
as everything has been fully seen,

she calls me to join her in the heat of the water
and i start to compromise about
everything that
i am,

the night is so silent
and the waters create the happiest ripples on
that moment,

i am mute and blind

this is now the imagination,

another pagination of a bookish self,
now flashing with pictures
with multicolor and lustful scents,
to include the stars and meteors
which are not supposed
to be there

happiness has an ending.
it is muted
the way it must be for
a married man
like me....

i recall again,
when she could have been more beautiful if we only
talk and exchange metaphors
when we should have simply exchange
pleasantries or

even just
biographies

or the latest news
on showbiz....

(shift)
(cough)
(hesitation to say something more about it*)

even if i do not have to hold her hands
and squeeze her supple body
or tickle
her nipple...
.
even if we do not have to close
our eyes
and then imagine someone else
somewhere
or
for those which we have never
seen
before the sun finally
sets....

the oral intercourse,
to my clean mind,
would have been more meaningful (if)

i should have told her
about a story
or about bukowski

that
it would have been more poetic

if we did nothing