Those young people
who barged in the clothing store
Roxanne, Haut Couture,
close to Parliament Hill,
and local attractions,
this is Cynthia,
hey Ray,
were only incidentally dressed,
and looked out of place
Their godly bodies,
not yet affected
by too many happy returns
of their own selves
in different packages
the cycle is of nine months,
they say,
during which all our cells get replaced
we all should look anew,
they say,
but we look a bit shabbier,
actually,
a bit crooked, a bit cracked,
like old furniture that's been refurbished,
the work of apprentices,
for sure,
who were not in charge with making Cynthia and Roy,
hurrraaayyy!
Their eyes were playing catch up
with the hungry eyes of those strangers
who were fumbling through the items on display,
who didn't ask for permission
to caress with hungry looks
their smooth thigs and arms and legs and skin
in shameless, furtive, sneaky cover-ups
dipped in polite, sparkly smiles
They were chatting about clothes
with the overrated taste of their ages,
craving to talk to their own,
eager to be talked to by their own,
to be listened by their own,
to be loved by their own,
when we all strangers around them
were thinking the opposite of clothing,
were thinking Adam and Eve,
the primordial alley with a tree and a snake,
while their painfully tempting bodies
were shaking lose our feeble chains of morality,
were blindfolding the watchdogs of our decency,
were digging out the beauty hunters
in each of us
The goddess was tending to a bar,
must be exciting Cynthia,
not quite, Ray,
she was handing out abused glasses
filling them with the daily intakes of alcohol,
the necessary poison for dying with hope,
in survival mode,
to all those overweight old males,
with dirty looks,
and crumpled overalls,
and broken teeth,
and stinky mouths,
and an insatiate appetite for soliling the beauty,
for painting the intimacy of lovemaking
in the strong colors of rape,
she was tending the clients at the bar
with the same elongated, marmorean arms
she used to caress the naked torso
of her young lover,
Ray, cool Ray,
Cynthia, goddess of love,
two children of the night,
but she was talking strictly clothing
and didn’t seem to think about anything else,
while I did
