The Wet Look

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He suddenly cried

but these were not just any tears.

These were tears

that had been in waiting

for many years.

"Tears delayed for years,"

a poet might say.

He hadn't held a woman

in his arms for five years

and he felt more alienated

than an attic.

If loneliness had been a crime,

he would have been a felon.

No dollar in the history of money

had ever experienced
more than two hours

in his pocket.

Given the snowballing effect

of poverty, loneliness and alienation,

an avalanche of tears

cascaded from his face,

saturated his clothes,

and filled the furnished little room

that in his better moments,

he called "home."

He escaped the deluge

through a broken window

in the bathroom.

A neighborhood woman

whom he had long lusted after

but had never spoken with

(except through his mind's eye)

found a dripping wet heap

just outside her door.

Her name was

Good Sara Maritan.

She helped him dry out

and fed him.

The more food she fed him,

the more sympathy

poured from her heart.

A more central part of her anatomy

befriended him

and they became lovers.

Three days later,

he returned home

and found a few tears

on the sofa

which had yet to dry.

They made him laugh

and he never cried again.

***

PAUL OLIVERIO

(1981)  

  

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Footnotes

THE WET LOOK

is the copyrighted property

of LCSoL

The original text travelled from

Hollywood to Virginia

and then to Long Beach.  

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