RADAMES ORTIZ

Loving Cindy  

As a boy I sought to be

rid of my virginity like

a common cold. Age 13

I hit it with an 18 yr. old

with thin lips & a dimpled chin.

“Slut of Galena Park” my friends

called her.  Didn’t matter.

She came over ‘round

3 a.m. Drunk & needing

a place to crash. “Come in,”

I said in my cool, no-sweat tone.

My penis inching into being

as she stumbles into house. 

She’s thin with breasts soft

as manteca mounds my mother

kneads on Sunday mornings.

I offer her a joint, in order to break

silence between two strangers.

She refuses. Invites me to

sit down & place my hands

on her little red nipples.

Hungry for perfumed skin

of alcohol & cigarette smoke,

my nostrils flare fire like horses.

I pull her near & bury my face

into sweet fold of neck.

“Tell me you love me,” she says.

Her eyes collapsing into

pools of lost sex & sweat.

“Please, tell me.” My lips

working over stomach

& fingers fumbling

buttons on CK jeans.

“I. . . I love you,” I say before

my mouth opens like wings

between her thighs.

Pink Nude (c)2003 Cheryl A. Townsend