Trespassing Fondly Enough
 
                                                                                     by William Doreski



                                                      Exploring houses and shops with you,

                                                      fondling leather chairs, bolts of silk,

                                                     and crystal decanters, explaining

 
                                                                  ourselves to families at dinner,

                                                                 excusing ourselves to lonely men

                                                                slumped before the evening TV news,

 
                                                                I feel bronze enough to pose naked

                                                                beside the Boston Public Gardens.

                                                                You shed your kinky boyfriend


                                                               not because of his lust for nuns

                                                               but because he cheated his father

                                                               out of a slab of real estate


                                                             and sold it to Donald Trump.

                                                             Now a skyscraper shaped like a tine

                                                             of a tuning fork hogs that acre

 
                                                            and your boyfriend has flown to Dublin

                                                            to seduce an Irish nun he met

                                                           at the airport. Escorting you

 
                                                           by means of his master key

                                                           through townhouses and shops closed

                                                          for the day, we’re risking arrest

 
                                                          as burglars, but no one has complained,

                                                          accepting our presence as friendly

                                                          and well-meaning ghosts. Exhausted

 
                                              by our meanderings, we slump

                                                         in a stranger’s living room and pour

                                                         Scotch into glasses embossed

 
                                                         with pheasant-hunting scenes. You sigh

                                                         that luscious pearly sigh no man

                                                        but your boyfriend can resist. Too bad

 
                                                        I’m older than your father or else

                                                        I’d pounce that carnivorous pounce

                                                        you expect when you strike this pose.              


                                                       The evening flickers in the streets.

                                                       We ought to introduce ourselves

                                                       to whoever owns this house but

 
                                                      for now we stretch and preen and sniff

                                                      the tawny liquor and toast ourselves,

                                                     glowing gemlike in the dusk.