Back to (Grad) School: The Foresaken Poems Revisted, Part Two

Back in September, I started looking at the first of a series of older poems from my less-than-stellar graduate school days. I took one of the more acceptable pieces to start with, "Our Only Dance."

It took a comment from Lisa Reade to get me to reconsider what she saw as "the punch" of the first version, particularly the last line: "The truth is that strong." My problem with the line was that I used a line about truth to help flesh out an aforementioned fantasy. I had to reconcile that but still acknowledge the yearning elements of the poem, if only to take some of the acidity out towards the end (I guess I got whatever hostile feelings I had out of my system).

Here's what I came up with.


Our Only Dance

Your presence was a charity
not wanting anyone,
even a non-drinking, semi-recluse
to celebrate his birthday alone.
You, the Freelance muse who catered
to many poets and sports writers
before your gay male lovers
who made sure the rumors had
your stamp of approval
revolted to up heave your network.
In that sports bar
with its obligatory dance floor
for the college crowd,
it was almost too much effort
to feign eye contact
by positioning your
controversial fuck buddy
to dance behind me
with your girlfriend
making me lament
my unrequited lust,
Prince’s “Erotic City” mocking me,
unaware that you and he
were shielding me from
the slings and arrows
of aspiring society columnists
back on campus.
I never dared to try and hold you
without a blunt invitation,
too inexperienced to survive
what you merely absorbed
for later excision
while you and your last fling
rested in respective counties
learning new ways to say “I love you”
to rebound lovers.
All this hindsight—
and you’re still an ageless fantasy
dancing to newer songs,
untouchable, immune to the truth.

Lisa, I await your judgment. No pressure. It's just that you were the only one to chime in.

(Update 11/4/07: After talking with Lynne, I finally was comfortable enough to remove the "fag hag" line. It obviously served it's purpose and doesn't need to be in the latest version anymore.)

(Update 2/1/08: The final draft of the poem is now up at the online journal, Fox Chase Review. Click here to read it.)