The Last Drop lost its joie de vivre in 2009—
Dani enforced this, acting out a script
(tease/taunt/topple) written for her by
South Philly goons. Why I’m now bemused
by the gaucherie of Dani’s gestures— cheap,
black, low-cut dresses worn to reveal ample cleavage,
flaming red hair styled always in plummeting
cascades— is that in ’18, no one’s titillated
by anything, let alone Dani— negligee stores derelict.
The truth of the imbroglio is an embarrassed
grin, about a grueling summer day enlivened
by our un-teased, un-taunted encounter. I
must say I am tempted to lie. The bathroom
door shut on us. The Drop was hollowed out.
When we emerged, it was as lovers. Why I was
the chosen I don’t know. How I pined for her
on those nights the grim reality of the recession
still hadn’t sunk in— as though the revelation, again,
of her breasts could deliver me from shadows
which impinged, but (it seemed) possibly only temporarily.
Once, in her Pine Street apartment, she bothered
to walk around before me in a bath towel. Why was I
a gentleman? The twist in the tale was to stick the thing in,
& thus win. The teasing, taunting then brought, it
would seem, to moot. The taste, also, of honey, then
delivered as something gracious, past mere promise.
Permission granted, then denied, pushed past,
joie de vivre visited upon the bloody-minded redhead, forever.
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