for Edie Adams in paradise

this is a poem. it’s a love poem.

I'm no saint, but

I’ve had loves taking shapes

like chameleons, warm-colored

and cold-blooded, sensual and mean,

mean-spirited like the vultures

who pounced upon you for the money

Ernie owed to the banks and the Vegas

mobsters and all the unpaid utility bills

and they took your money, too, the bastards!

so I’m dreaming of you, Edie, of your tight dress

and your mouth and legs of silk and I know it’s not right

to be so superficial, and there are other dreams, I know,

but not right now. not tonight.

tonight it’s only your face like an angel’s face

and your legs making nylon act like another

layer of skin and your ass, the ass five hundred

Hollywood starlets wish they had but they don’t, Edie.

It’s only your ass for my kisses from now until as far

as light itself can see which is 15 quintillion miles.

that's the number. look it up. but where in that distance

is the last smokey Muriel to have touched your mouth?

who could know? certainly not I.

but tonight, tonight it's you and me, Edie

and your face and your legs and your ass and lord have mercy..