Being eaten alive cannot be
that terrible. It was a tempting idea,
as I thought on the vultures
that wait there upon the fence.
As I thought on the beaks
snapping at my ventricles, claws
grasping with taloned ferocity deep
into the pit of my stomach.
It cannot be so bad.
Inside the bar, I sip
on scotch and soda
I was out with a woman;
an older beaut that led me
in magnificent circles
of conversation till
I found myself drunk and
without a word to say. Slightly
later in the evening I
ran into an old flame that
I never wished had gone
out. --Yet as they do,
so did she--
This vulture was stunning
in the lamplight of the
plaza, asking me over a drink
how I came to have this woman out,
in all this time without one.
Boredom was my only answer.
Its tendency to draw me in,
with an excusable neglect to
realize the futility of such sport.
She knew, merely in the look she
gave me. She knew the ***** secret of the
skin that grasps and yearns for that almighty friction.
She knew, for indeed she played the
game well enough. Many men have found
her since me, and many more would
seek her out and find her, until I was
merely a tally on the mark. But she
knew that moment, over scotch and soda,
how bad the vultures had me, she
knew that moment, sitting there upon the fence,
that she led the charge.
She never said a word, finished her drink,
took a dance with a man I'll never know.
The woman I came with stormed home,
enraged over something I'll never know,
and the world danced around me to
a tune of which I'll never know.
Instead, I sat over another scotch and soda
and wondered how
bad it could possibly be
to be eaten alive.