DEAD BEAT FLIRT.

[dadio]

Shamira looks
at the sleeve
of the LP:
Mahler's 6th,
box set.

You shouldn't
spoil me.

Summer evening,
a country lane,
high hedges.

I wanted you
to have it;
it's what I think
you'll enjoy.

You can't afford
to buy me
these gifts;
you don’t have
to buy me anything.

I know;
I want to.

We go
to the local pub
and she has a wine
and I have a beer.

We sit outside,
watching the sun setting.

How are your parents?

She looks at me.

My mother's ok,
but my father's
not sure of you.

Thought not;
the way he looks at me;
different class,
I guess.

I sip my beer;
she sips her wine.

I like her
long brown hair,
tied in a ponytail;
her brown eyes,
sharp,
not deceived,
intelligent.

He worries about me,
she says,
wants the best for me.

Can't blame him;
I’m just a nurse
and poet.

She smiles.

It's more than that,
he looks to the future,
wants me up there
where my education
and grooming
is setting me.

Do you see me
as holding you back?

I don't look at things
like that;
it is people in themselves
that matters.

I light up a cigarette;
she sips her wine.

Anyway, I’m off
to university next month,
so I won't see
you that often,
she says.

Guess not.

I know she'll meet
other of her class there;
more educated,
more moneyed.

Our brief encounter
will be a history;
our love making
an episode
or margin note
in the book
of her future life.

I inhale;
I like
how she looks;
I like her small breasts;
her neat
compact body
poured into her jeans
and tee shirt;
she a father's princess,
me
a dead beat flirt.

[dadio]

Set in 1974 when I drank and smoked.

[the mingo]

set in your heart, you mean - Thx Terry -

[justwalt]

He worries about me,
she says,
wants the best for me.

nice work

reminds me when my daughter would
bring a new boyfriend home to meet me
for the first time...

man, did I have fun
scaring some of them away

[Terri]

Like this a lot. I like your take on women, what I've seen through more than a few poems you've posted. Anyway, to the poem - I like the brevity, the directness, the short lines, all of it. If I have eight bucks to spare next month I'm buying your book.

[sweetwater]

nostalgic semblances
of movement

[dadio]

Thank you, all.