BITTERNESS
by Olga Broumas
She who loves roses must be patient
and not cry out when she is pierced by thorns.
—Sappho
In parody
of a grade-B film, our private
self-conscious soapie, as we fall
into the common, suspended disbelief of love, you ask
will I still be
here tomorrow, next week, tonight you ask me am I really
here. My passion delights
and surprises you, comfortable
as you’ve been without it. Lulled,
comfortable as a float myself in your real
and rounded arms, I can only smile
back, indulgently
at such questions. In the second reel—
a season of weeks, two
flights across the glamorous Atlantic, one
orgy and the predictable divorce
scenes later—I’m fading out
in the final close-up
alone. As one
heroine in this
two-bit production to the other, how long
did you, did we both know
the script
meant you to wake up doubting
in those first nights, not me, my daytime
serial solvency, but yours.
Yesterday—the same day that a child was testifying before Congress about being abused by online sexual predators—a high-ranking Bush official was arrested for pedophilia. Yes, Bush’s deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security tried to solicit sex from a fourteen-year-old girl.
This also from the Post:
Another Homeland Security official—Frank Figueroa, special agent in charge of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa—faces trial this week on charges of exposing himself to a teenage girl last year at a mall. Figueroa, who has been suspended, pleaded not guilty.
As my Baptist mother used to say, be sure your sins will find you out, yo.
SANG IN SHOWER: Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” (which dates me, huh?)
READING: The search warrant for 610 N Buchanan St. (AKA the lacrosse team house beside Duke campus).
BEST-OF SPAM: I FAILED AND STILL MAKE 94K! [but apparently cannot find the caps lock key on his computer]
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