teach me your ways

I was alone,

unemployed,

living on assistance from the United Way,

riding mass transit to job fairs,

eating ramen noodle soup and Kraft mac and cheese.

It was a fruitless existence.

No phone.

Then, there was no electricity.

It was the middle of February.

I kept warm by wearing a snowsuit and

bundling myself in three wool blankets.

The only light came from trick candles

in a menorah and a Bugs Bunny night light.

My mailbox was filled with

threatening letters from my landlord,

my credit card companies.

Then a visit

from the sheriff’s department.

Eviction notice.

Blah blah blah,

blah blah blah.

Walked to the bus stop,

on my way to the soup kitchen to get a

baloney sandwich and their soup du jour.

Met a woman named Goldy

who smiled at me, for some reason, and

struck up a conversation.

“You okay?” she said.

“I’ve been better,” I said.

“You look tired,” she said.

“I was born tired…”

She laughed and said she liked my sense of humor.

Told her I didn’t think I was being all that funny.

She laughed some more.

Said I reminded her of Paul Simon.

Wanted to know if I was a musician.

“Used to be,” I said. “Long time ago…”

“What did you play?”

“Drums…”

“Ohmigod,” she said. “I love drummers! Ya’ll have so much rhythm!”

“Sometimes,” I said.

She laughed again.

I wondered why she kept laughing.

I wasn’t cracking any jokes.

She asked me if I was hungry.

“I am,” I said.

“Do you like gumbo?”

“I do.”

“I’ll make you some tonight.”

“Okay.”

She was the one who began it all.

My journey.

My education.

My salvation.

I told her I wasn’t a praying man,

she didn’t give a damn,

just wanted me to kiss her

all over her body and

we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

When she put her hands down my pants,

I sighed, and she loved that because it

was a joyful sigh, a sigh that told her she

was satisfying me completely.

I couldn’t wait to make love to her,

couldn’t wait till her mouth tasted me.

I looked into her beautiful eyes and never

lied to her, always told her what she

knew about herself;

predicted I would leave her

one day and watched her as she resigned

herself to that reality.

But she never wavered in her devotion to me.

She believed I would make her life just a little

bit better for at least a moment or two and

that was enough for her.

It was more than anyone else had offered her.

She was so fragile but tougher than me.

She wouldn’t back down when I argued

with her ethics and her morals.

I couldn’t hide my

unobtrusive nature

with her.

She couldn’t hide her passion for dirty talk

with me.