For the Man My Father Might Have Chosen

My father would have liked you,
liked the clean way you dressed,
the almost deferential
way you put your hand
on my shoulder, and the way
you glide through conversation, like
an eel: you would have swum
through my father's interrogation
without a thought.
                    Much like the
way you glide through
me, each word,
each thought
a piece of clothing you
slip off to get to my cunt.
The thought of kissing you,
our mouths moving absent-
mindedly in small talk--although
you insist on moving your mouth
all over me--oh no,
I can't even remember ever wanting to touch that
with my mouth,
since you kiss my mouth as though it were a cunt,
a mouth without a face.
                          And then you come
inside me, guttural sounds filling your mouth and
spilling onto my shoulders, you, covered
in a sweat you didn't earn.
And I think of my father,
who would have liked you even now, liked the way
you took off your glasses before eating me out.
Much as I try to see you
through my father's eyes, you are
still pitiful, still graceless,
and I wonder why
my mother ever married you.

6 November 1993

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