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Excerpt from “Wiped Out” by James Matthew Wilson

By Ernest Hilbert • February 26, 2016 • E-Verse Universe

I

She was a liar—pathological,
+++++++I mean—and so, when we had our last fight
+++++++And she left screaming, it was logical
+++++++To trash the photos of our trashed delight—
All cuddle-headed, grinning in the light
+++++++Of barroom neon signs, our faces rising
+++++++Above the glassy necks of bottles—, right?
+++++++Delete her number, cut her friends, reprising
All she had purred in bed as fantasizing.
+++++++Why wear the tattoos of an episode
+++++++Of which the facts, in fact, were mere disguising,
+++++++Signified nothing, or less than they showed?
But those hot pleasures I took on her flesh
+++++++Couldn’t be forgot or—better—had afresh.

II

She said she was in nursing school: a lie.
+++++++A lie, that she had moved to town to care
+++++++For her frail grandmother—who had just died.
+++++++Her grandpa had been a preacher; knelt in prayer,
She sometimes heard his voice. It left her scared,
+++++++Or so she said, but it was all untrue.
+++++++The night we met, she wore no underwear,
+++++++And when my hand slipped up her leg, I soon
Felt the warm folds where her thighs met. “Do you
+++++++Believe a man and woman should be married
+++++++Before they make love? I do. I think I do,”
+++++++She whispered, warm lips to my ear. I carried
Her to her room, hearing the tentative tone.
+++++++A whopper: I was the first to make her moan.

III

She gave me what I wanted, that’s for sure,
+++++++And usually several times a night. As she
+++++++Straddled my hips and arched, I felt as pure
+++++++As any knight who’d raise, in charity,
An orphaned student nurse from poverty.
+++++++When I found condom wrappers in the chest
+++++++Beside her bed, when we met—constantly—
+++++++Frat boys who bought her shots and eyed her chest
As if they’d seen it oftener than the rest
+++++++Of her, my ears would drink in every excuse:
+++++++The rubbers, her old roommate’s; she confessed
+++++++The boys were family friends she couldn’t lose,
Having lost so much in her life already.
+++++++Not me, I’d mouth. Oh, no, I’m true and steady.

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