a
good
woman

she
was a good woman,
knew
her place in the home.

she
was a kind woman,
kind
to everybody:
her brother,
mother,
father.

she cooked them all
a roast dinner
ev’ry Sunday ...

I ?
I don’t remember
what I did
at
11.

 

 

I have
no reason
to complain

but
I do, anyway.

 

for here,
my friend no longer sits beside me,

he prefers a distance,
as our conversation had finally decided

to
turn to

something
which I had always wanted it

to
turn to.

 

and he asks me the question that some would call ‘personal’
and shy away from,

either
to protect

their embarrassment of their minimal earning capacity,
or their deepfelt shame of success at the expense of others.

 

yes

he asks me what I earn and

I
tell him –

I tell
this contracted nursing assistant
working 12 hr shifts, with minimal, on-site training

I
tell him

that I’m on 15 pounds an hour,
90 pounds a day, for working a six hour day

 

while others

who have had four years at university
and have chosen certain courses

deemed valuable in capitalist society
are earning much much more than myself.

 

and he tells me how much he earns –
5 pounds an hr, as a nursing assistant,

who has no real interest
in wanting to understand the ‘class thing’ in capitalism

in all its ugly manifestations,
but to escape to art

for his sake
having completed an art’s degree

deemed less worthy
by capitalist society

than law or It
or bus. management.

and he distances
himself from me,

grows cold,

as capitalism stings his 5 pds/hr ego
and blames me (at 15pds/hr)

while
we speak of

something
in a conversation

which I
had always wanted

to
start
something from.

 

and still
we wait ...

 

 

missing
a part

we met
through a mutual
acquaintance

and I was
lured to a

New Age hippy
camp-out for the summer

with the promise
of

hot,
sweaty sex

and my mind
focused on the

hot,
sweaty sex,

while her car,
her,
and me

headed south for Wiseman’s Ferry
and we found

a place to swim
by a river

with a private bank
concealed

by
mangroves

and I watched mudcrabs
freeing themselves

while
she sucked me off

and then
I stopped her ...

both of us
in mid-need

 

and we swam
in the river

before the final drive
to the camp

where we pitched
the tent

and quickly
occupied ourselves

with the
hot,
sweaty sex

promise
thing

and then

I went down on her
and stopped

and
while she waited

I wondered to myself
how she’d lost

one of her
flaps

whether
it had been

to a frustrated woman-hating
lover

who
came before me

or
to an Australian freshwater
piranha

that
the marine biologists

had not
yet

warned us
about.