First outings (not a date exactly).
someone you’re impressed with.
You trot out your best anecdotes
and venture small confidences.

You have to decide which “you” to show
- the serious-seeming student, the ditz,
the pianist, the Tom Brady fan, the writer.

He does an impression of Tom Hanks
that was very good and very funny.
“It could have been worse,” I said,
but he knew what I meant.
“It’s my party trick,” he said.

I thought of a long ago prom after-party
- a guy removing my earrings with his tongue -
sending chills up and down me and grinning with pearls in his lips.

We’re here, in the new, the now
but we’re married to memories.

Another college tour, another favor. This time it was an old schoolmate, George and his parents who were taking the official tour. I was going to babysit his little sister Mary (5) while they walked around.

It was good to see someone from home and sad in a way. For a moment, I had a tugging feeling, like there was a hook deep inside me and the reel was back home.

When I first saw George I remembered a time, in 10th grade, before COVID. I was leaving school early and waiting to be picked up. Twenty track boys, fresh from their daily run, were lounging, seductively around. George, in particular, in a pose rather like Michelangelo’s Adam. “***!” I remember thinking at the time.

I smiled at that long-ago tableau. “What?” George asked, he was watching me. “Nothing,” I smiled, “Just looking forward to babysitting”

Mary and I exercised to a video, had a pizza delivered and colored - crayons aren’t easy to find in the modern college environment so we used high-lighters to create delicate, watercolor-like masterpieces.

As we drew, Mary said, off-handedly, “You’re really nice,” as if the nature of my character had been in some dispute. Still, I still felt warmly complemented.

When the tour was over, we were walking up science hill toward their car and the sun was declining to sunset. “How do you like it,” George asked, confidentially, head lowered, voice low enough not to be overheard by his parents who were walking a few yards behind us with Mary. “There’s a LOT of reading,” I said, shruggingly. “but I’m keeping up.” Last year I was a junior, this year I’m in college. It seemed absurd.

How do you conjure a vision for someone of what college would be like, when college experiences are so individual? The writer's dilemma, interpreted by a babysitter.

As we reached their car, the caroling bells started ringing (5pm) from Harkness Tower.  It was the perfect send-off. Again I felt the pull of homesickness but my phone plinked and the emotion didn’t even last as long as dusk.

Mornings are the BEST
a fresh start
who says the universe is cruel?

Yesterday’s mistakes
gone like vaporous nothings..
well, the small ones anyway.

I got this glittery, ruby-red, smudge-proof lipstick the other day
and I really have to say technology is what separates us from the apes.

Well, technology and hair.. and.. - ok, let’s not dwell on the ape thing.

Remember when lipstick smeared like news-print? Well, neither do I - it was one of those old-timey things you hear about somewhere like phone-booths, CDs and smart republicans.

What about the young teenage girls who aren’t supposed to wear lipstick - who put it on, in the morning, at their locker, at school only to discover - seconds before their mom picks them up - that it's practically non-removable?  Try hiding your lips from your mom.

I want breath-freshening, pizza flavored, ****-repelling, morning-after-pill lipstick - that glitters, irresistably, like cotton candy ***.

snort If men wore lipstick I’m sure we’d have all that by now.

My houseplant committed suicide.
It came out of the blue - or at least - I didn’t catch the signs.

I’d put it on my window ledge so it could catch some sun
- it appeared to be having a good time.

I brushed it with my elbow - the wispy kiss of a butterfly
and it leapt to its shattering end - I never will know why.

The girl it barely missed, looked up - in accusatory alarm.
“What if that had been a BABY!” I yelled, to keep her calm.

We had a terra-cotta funeral - my roommates seemed really sad -
and a reception where no plant-life was consumed.

Lisa, acted quickly - she’s a fashionable 911
and at the funeral she buried the corpse, in a new ***, in her room.

Anyone can write a poem
I mean, they’ve never passed a law
and with the quick access to paper
and all.

Of course, the serial poet’s the danger
that keeps us up at night - someone lacking
the gene for rhyme control. Normal people can’t
imagine such wonton, naked promiscuity with words.

It’s best that we ignore them - to nip it in the bud.
A real collective effort is required - let us build
institutional archives - yes - we’ll call them libraries - to
lock such verse away - may it never again see the light of day.

If you catch a child with a pencil, slap it out of their little hand
because we cannot start too early in discouraging needless rhyme.

This public service announcement - pointing out this new “poetry”
trend - was made for the benefit of all.

I envy the stylish model
her styrofoam perfect *******
those legs that never need shaving
the sweet smile that needs no rest
the hair that’s always behaving
the pose that teasingly arrests
she’s a icon of current fashion
a flower neatly pressed
but no love will ever find her
no one cares if she’s undressed
she’ll never accomplish anything
never mind - I’m not impressed