It was autumn, or late summer.

We met in the coat-room she called home

for half her waking life.

She, the coat-check girl,

I, the elevator guy.

We didn’t see ourselves as past-due or endangered

then,

but now, upon reflection…

Something about her rosewater perfume layered

in thick workingclass sweat

drew me in

as I delivered some truly terrible elevator pun

about going down

and next thing I knew we were

clothes torn skin rented

fucking.

We fucked with the world-ending rhythm

of two people who were poor

and knew that they’d always be poor,

we screwed the blues into and out of us,

third-class citizens whose visions of richness

would remain a glossy mirage and syringe

discarded at the edge of a postcard

lying to us from a sanitized distance.

We became instant credit and convenient loans

to each other’s high-interest, defaulting loneliness.

Once, only once.

What became of her, I sometimes wonder,

but more often find myself asking,

in a quiet room where loss echoes loudly,

what became of me?