SUMMER

has always
reminded me
of summer--
from the first jolt
of blistering 90+
my voice rises,
gets higher;
Beethoven's 128
becomes 18, a funeral dirge
changes into Frankie Lymon,
nipples signify
not mom,
but hope,
mystery & night
are my double helix;
a tough tattoo
sings do-wop
just because
it can.
Where else should my fingers go
if not across the expanse
of a bra strap
fumbling with hooks
& fever; what's more
exciting than learning
how to smoke
& French kiss
with your older cousin?
You drop dime after dime
on new sides: The Miracles,
Shirelles or Drifters.
What is more miraculous
than a pool ball banked
or a basketball kissing backboards
or the one/three pocket in an alley?

And what is more impossible
than imagining yourself
here...
now...
suddenly weighted,
arrived at what was
once your forest
of motives,
your dark wood,
only to find
you're really
nowhere?

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

KISSING THE FATES

I know this babe
who's in prison.
I write her
nearly every day
both for amusement
& salvation.
I've offered,
sometimes,
a key--
but that
has proved
to be
a problem:
How does one accept
a key from
your jailor?
Both of us,
it seems,
are fated
to do
the maximum.
Let us kiss
those fates
with abandon.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

My first wife
married me
for a Green Card;
and now you
for rent stabilization--Christ,
where's love?

First safety,
then freedom,
she said,
then love.
Dontcha know anything?

Fuck Maslow.
I looked out the window
at The Verrazano Bridge.
I saw that sonofabitch
being built,
I said,
from my bedroom window.
We were on our way
toward a frank & fries
at Nathan's.

I don't know, Erika,
do you even like me?

I could get used to you,
she offered. I'm gonna
work with kids,
she went on, I can practice
on you.

I know I'll get jealous
of you bein with the dyin kids
so much; that's the kind of guy
I am.

Cropsey Avenue was coming up,
and the air cooled
and turned salty. The sun
burned a hole on my leg.
My history was dotted
with acne.

If it makes you feel better,
I'm getting the worse of the deal,
she stated.
It does make me feel better,
but I still have to think on it,
I replied.
Don't think too long, hon,
somebody's gonna pull the trigger,
she teased and took her eyes off
the road to look at me, while I
kept mine on the oncoming
traffic. She was
a pretty good driver
but I was the best
with or without
a car.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

A DEATH RATTLE FROM CALVARY

Lincoln Road, Miami Beach,
hot as a motherfucker,
I moved slowly,
next to my father,
on his walker,
as we took our perch
outside Books & Co.,
me pretending
to be smart,
& he being
his cunt hound self,
watching the parade
of pussy squirt
by. I'd bought us
ten dollar chocolate ices
& twenty dollar Romeo et Juliet cigars
figuring we had one good afternoon left
to figure it out
but never did.
It might have been the heat
that swelled our egos
or our limited capacity
for love
that shrunk our worlds,
but whatever it was
it eviscerated speech
& we were both
grateful for that
I knew.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

WE TRADED KISSES

and rumors,
whispers of conspiracies,
suffused the concrete
against our backs
right-angled handball courts
in our schoolyard.
They were lit
by our backdrop, graffiti neon,
mouse eared, horses
made of iron charging
full throated & adamantine, a city
gun like rainbow jello,
weeping toward a jitterbug June.
Our t-shirts
still white, our arms
barely brown our hands
creaseless
careless yet tight
around fingers walking Spanish
inside each other
and the play of shadows.

We had time
for a cigarette
but only
if we shared it.
We saved our saliva
for our mouths
when they opened
to each other
& left the cigarette
perfectly dry.
Closer,
I said.
She laughed.
C'mon,
closer.
She draped one leg
across mine.
Closer.
Her mouth
& tongue
were in
my ear.
Nicotine
slid
down
my throat.

We had cut
our ninth period
in the ninth grade;
we were seniors,
we had
all the time
in the world.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

YOU KNOW

Dominican girls
are the best
kissers? she said,
like everyone,
including me,
was supposed to know that.
Yeah, I said,
I know it--
I fell
into this girl's lips
one time in Miami,
and still remember it;
can still
taste it, like
a warm pool
of honey.
Well,
I'm better,
she stated
simply,
assuredly; I'm older,
I've got...ways.

She let the word
dangle--
like the rest of me
was doing...

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016

SHE DRIVES

for a living
while I sit
for mine.
She's a real pretty Dominican
with a kinda Brandy Alexander complexion
that you just wanna touch
let alone taste
while my shelf life
is long past its expiration date.
But she laughs
at my jokes
& that's music
enough, as we wend our way
past circumstance
& accidents.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2016