laughed in my face. I handed her a rose
bouquet. It might as well have been a glop
of sewage.
I felt like a piece of chewed gum
spit out in a water fountain at the gym
all because of Anastasia Williams.
I liked how she walked into the gym,
Stacy, a big blond with curves,
pushing forty, easily young enough
to be my daughter. A vine tattoo, green
with tinges of red, twirled from her calve
to her thigh. I liked her bruised shin
she showed me from when she tripped
on a stair master. I liked her voice, her hair
coiled at the top of her perfect head.
She sat at a machine doing pull downs
for her lats, arms, and shoulders. I liked her
back, her front.
I wrote her a letter. I brought her roses,
yellow roses. She said, Keep them. Give them
to someone closer to your own age.
Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, House Sitting, is available from the Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.
