Autobiography: Erotica

The first time I cupped a girl's breast in my hand
I was driving my father's big black Oldsmobile
her head on my shoulder her hair tickling my ear
I ran through a red light and as it was 1 o'clock
in the morning and the streets were empty we
didn't get killed, but if we had, if we had
it would have been OK

My first girlfriend lived in Brooklyn. We rode
back and forth to the city in a train rushing underground
through a dark tunnel. The train was called Canarsie.

In 57 years 4 months from the time I first dated the girl
who became my wife until the last time, I had kissed her 62,775 times
in the course of which we had two children, and they in their times
gave us three grandchildren. The 62,776th time
I kissed my wife's eye, tasting salt.

Sometime between the first kiss with the girl who became my wife
and the last I kissed another woman. I said, "The human heart is not so stingy
it can love only one person." My wife said, "Love is One."

The other woman grew up in Brooklyn. After the sickness came she
lived on a river, paddling her kayak on its waters and among its
marshlands. Her ashes were strewn over the river.

I kissed a third woman. She didn't grow up in Brooklyn
When we are close she whispers in a mellifluous alien language
I reply with a poem of sounds but no words.

It was the Bronx.