He was really her favorite
student, dark and just
back from the army with
hot olive eyes, telling her of
bars and the first
time he got a piece of
ass in Greece or was it
Italy and drunk on some strange
wine and she thought
in spite of his dangling
pronoun (being twenty four and
never screwed but in her
soft nougat thighs) that he
would be a
lovely experience.
So she shaved her legs up high
and when he came
talking of foot notes she
locked him tight in her
snug black file cabinet where
she fed him twice a day and
hardly anyone noticed
how they lived among bluebooks
in the windowless office
rarely coming up for sun or the
change in his pronoun. Or the
rusty creaking chair
or that many years later
they were still going to town in
novels she never had time to finish
LYN LIFSHIN’s most recent books include Ballroom; All the Poets (Mostly) Who Have Touched Me, Living and Dead: All True, Especially the Lies; and A Girl Goes into The Woods. Lyn’s Another Woman Who Looks Like Me was published by Black Sparrow at David Godine in 2006; also out in 2006 was her prize-winning book about the famous racehorse Ruffian—The Licorice Daughter: My Year With Ruffian (Texas Review Press).
