I used to go out with the grandson
of William Carlos Williams:
Paul was his name, Paul Williams
sophomore at Bates College.
He was a runner, with
a tight hard body
whose muscles were as
peeled as loins exposed
through sweat clung shorts.
My father liked Paul
because he was the
grandson of a famous
poet and my Freshman
Lit professor liked me
because I knew the poetry.
Paul and I would neck
in his grandfather‘s garage.
He would have deflowered me there
but I was still a virgin
and much too scared of that.
Many hours were spent in
William C.‘s garage, awakening
each other‘s puberty
with awkward hands
in the raw winter night.
Paul‘s parents were formal
They scrutinized with oblique glances.
But I was blameless
In my careful ash-blonde curls
and fully buttoned shirtwaist.
Eighteen, I looked but fourteen.*
Yet Paul was diffident and
I resonated too much
to his wary just-cuffed look.
I couldn‘t bear to see myself in him
cringing at imaginary blows
both too shy, too much alike
Mute before a sibyl‘s words
her beckoning incantation
we only heard our bodies touch
rarely disturbed the silence and
I knew I needed a more
conventional man,
a well blonded football
player with melon biceps
and a belly already
beginning to soften
I still often thrill to
think of Paul and wonder
if I could have banished my fear-fraught
chill had we just gone somewhere warmer?
Shared a seasonal eggnog?
And William Carlos?
Sound asleep upstairs and nearly deaf?
How glad he would have been
to have known the poetic strength
of his Rutherford garage!