Discarded them all,
deciding to let others
fill in the blanks.

For me, lovers were young
men with bleached hair
and capped teeth rich older women
took into their playpens as toys.
For a while, anyway.
Like Grace Kelley,
or those discrete dowagers
over in Palm Beach clinging
to some well-dressed stud's arm.

When our dynamite finally exploded,
leaving me to reattach heart
to body, brush ash from
my clothes, I was glad
I never had to explain
a missing lover;
only a man carrying a match,
already busy trying to put a name
to his next relationship.

Pris Campbell
©2010

Chiron Review 2011

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