Temptation rising to the highest level.
We were in high school, but all my friends went to school high.
Joey was a bad ***, so that caught ur attention.
So I started skipping practice, missing classes and never showed up for detention.
I had to act like a pro, pulling you closer, kissing you slower, making you fall for it all.
She asked if I ever had *** before.
Of course I acted cool and said yeah.
So she thought I was a pro, but I kept it smooth.
The coast was clear.
I walked you home after school and I was supposed to be at football practice.
Kissing the whole way, touching each other at the back paths... Making the walk longer to foreplay.
Once we arrived to your house, nobody was home.
Your moms car was still there, but there was a note in the kitchen saying that they were gone.
We rushed into it, but I kept my cool.
Acting like I've done this before.
She told me to take it easy, because it was her first time too.

Will an eligible bloke happier be if he
Marries a ranking *ele like Miss Universe
With all her glory and graces, and 'cause
Of marriage mirth? Will a sheila pretty
An unbroken regalement have for a dream
Prince Charming--the fairy man of her whim?

Will the soul be jolly for the sophomore
More than for the frosh rapture of success
Had in the Ivy League of cosmic business,
When the heart cut a caper and an encore
Of hilarity requests of narrowed life--
To have constant binge in lieu of strive?

What man is wholly from trouble free, whose
Being be to sadness inured? Within, the
Spokes do sometimes snap at the rotary
Wheels of serenity, and chaos is let loose.
What thus can stay the pillars of pleasure in
A plagued world is above this little noggin.

It’s hard to imagine almost three months of unencumbered fun. My Grandmère says it’s my first summer as an “adult.” Is it funny that I don’t yet see myself as an adult?

Her “frosh-end” gift to me is a summer of anything I want (chaperoned, of course, to counterbalance the nefarious strategic significance of our femaleness) with her secretarial minions coordinating tickets, booking travel, airfare and hotels. ***, we have SO much planned.

There’ll be travel, plisse bikini-covers, gas-station sunglasses, marathon-beach-walks, bright-dense-tangerine sunsets, Yamazaki flavored snow-cones, moonlight swangin, ***-positivity and righteous gratitude to my Grandmère for all this.

And there won’t be any deterministic nonlinear systems analysis or multicellular biology quizzes.

Leong isn’t going back to Macau (China) over summer break so I’m stealing her. She’s spending her entire summer with me. In June, my parents are off, for the rest of the summer, to Poland with “Doctors without borders,” so we become untethered. Of course, all of our plans are covid or WWIII dependent and thus subject to cancellation without prior notice.

In May, I’m going to show Leong life in America, well, Georgia anyway. I’ll introduce her to my old high school crew, show her life on the lake, and teach her how to play frisbee golf and of course, how to waterski. We’re going to Braves games, to see Bonnie Raitt, Barenaked Ladies, and Indigo Girls concerts - and that’s just May.

In June, when my folks leave for Poland, Lisa, Anna, and Sunny will join us for the rest of the summer. First, we’re off to Dublin, Ireland for a few days where we’ll see Duran Duran in concert. Then we’ll go to London and shop for day three of the Royal Ascot.

Day three, at Ascot, is “Ladies Day,” when they parade those hats “My Fair Lady” made famous. We’ll table in the Windsor Enclosure (the “cheap seats”) where you don’t have to wear a silly hat (Americans don’t DO that, do we?) and the dress code is slightly more relaxed. Don’t fret though, the royal family will carriage right by us (an unobstructed 30 feet away) at 2PM sharp and we’ll enjoy champagne, strawberries and 5-star cuisine as horses run for their lives.

In January, all we could talk about were Florida beaches - but that’s not the situation now - the Florida atmosphere just seems too straight-white toxic. So we’re staying euro-side and will drop to Saint-Tropez until we go see Olivia Rodrigo, in Paris, on June 22nd.

As you can see, it’s a lot - and I can’t wait!
I hope you have big plans - make big plans - life's too short!

The alleyways of Ann’s arbor – a
reminiscence of myriad trips from
Lisboa to Cascais with stops at
the green lawns of the palace of
a desceased Portuguese nobleman.

Nine trips to the same country –
a welcome yearly journey to a
welcoming country – Portugal –
my gift to him, for his gift of
love to me, obrigado, T.

A bell tower decorating the campus
sky – under the stately protection of
a graduate universe – was home to
languages sought and tended to
reverently in their own building.

Across the diagonal heart of the
sunstruck pagan centerpiece –
libraries and hothouses cast their
shadows on the pedestal of the
flagpole, in its trite austerity.

The halls of the new residence
greeted a swarm of newly coined
experiments – immune from the
15 credits of drills visited on the
typical first-year initiates.

The typical pie chart had three
pieces – logic & language, frosh
seminar and foreign language –
a fourth piece could be elected,
and was, from a vast menu.

It was I, the almost doctoral kid,
who swept up the remnants of
French vocab and grammar for
the required classes needed to
be proficient by college rules.

I, who lamented his freedom, yet
came to classes – more than one –
fettered by guilt, if not burdened
with book-writing and admin tasks
which violated the Ph.D. goal.

That first class was a thrill per
conjugation and realia – nothing
was too much for the college –
and my recollection is of
a no-holds-barred classroom.

Only once before had I broken
a rule that then wasn’t even of
consequence – the post-grades-
turned-in frivolous date with
an ex-student, a male.

Language classes were not graded
in the college – so there was little
to dissuade the profs from an
up-front, public display of college
camaraderie – call it tutorials.

She was the perfect fit – a well-
educated daughter of a diplomatic
family – with manners, looks and
wit – and no apparent frosh
baggage to taint our time.

I think back, those fifty years ago,
of her as an exceptional friend, a
lovely, soft and caring woman –
a female who actually cared what
I thought, and liked my friends.

The recently redecorated college
halls greeted us with grace on this,
the fiftieth anniversary of inception –
I recognized my former colleagues
and students, wrinkles and all.

We said our names to each other –
as if they were fake news or as
if we wanted verification of the
physical existence of the elder
person standing face-to-face.

Then I made a necessary walk –
my walker and I – to the couch
in the lounge area, where I could
not resist asking about him – her
erstwhile boyfriend of the 60s.

Names, dates – more or less –
came to both of us – she knew
more than I about many men
who shared our lives – It was
my turn, then hers to recount.

Our college coterie was not
immune to the unacceptable –
there was Jay’s addiction, George B.’s
penchant for boys, my lunchtime
martinis, and bizarre Anita.

My forty-seven years were a
predictable journey – what else
do non-***** French teachers
do? – she a surprise package,
at least to me, a cause for envy.

These two lives joined only by
memories – the symmetry of
years together, and the unknowns
of years apart – except the names:
Chuck, Tom R., Mark, and Tom W.

The agenda called us back to our
raison d’ être – the need to go to
the next session, event, meal, etc.
We met at Stephen’s limnal space
crossing, and I went to hear music.

There were so many college “sardines”
seated at round tables at the festive,
closing dinner, that our meeting up
was almost accidental – she and I
both trying not to waste a moment.

In the days that followed our abrupt
goodbye, I spent trying to relive this
unique couple that she and I were –
student/teacher? Only briefly –
lay minister/clergyperson?  Yes.

But denominationally different and
worlds apart in miles, would a couple
of onetime friends – forget titles –  
now share their lives in a modest way
or drift apart forever?

We are technocrats, so the business
of staying together rests on electronic
mail – or phone numbers scribbled
on a napkin – hence I shudder at the
loss of a treasure such as she.

I cannot know the outcome – the
marriage of minds is complex,
especially for two aging ones –
but I am a hoper who takes his
clues from above.

A favorite author writes of “ghost
spots” –  staring out from my world
to her world – “Remember the way?”
I look her in the face and say:
“Call me by your name.”  Please.

© Lewis Bosworth 12/2017

Thine fligertoch froznen ech
Cucenkis chenches n xylomec,
The shlipless splood
Upon thy frosh,
With deutromic flide
and fligertosh!

O durgling narthex
And dushi dift,
Of birken shlip -
Those liqulor cractles!
Jugnot (that ye be not jugged),
Boxinuts of bumten quaggles.