YOU SEND ME

was Sam's crossover hit;
Monk was about to play
The Five Spot
for a month at a time.
The year was 1957
and I was about to crawl into a closet
with a ten year old girl.
I was friendly with her cousin
who lived around the corner from me
in Brooklyn. Ever play strip poker?
she asked. I can play Go Fish & War,
I countered. Ever see a girl's thing?
she asked. Just my mother's,
I countered. That doesn't count,
she said, you wanna see one?
I do. Yes I do.
OK, but you have to show me yours.
Alright...when?
Right now, stupid.
We were in her parent's living room
and the sun was pouring over us
lighting the sins we were surely
committing. But sin is delicious
anytime, anywhere, any age,
no matter if you know
what the hell you're doing
or not.
I slipped off my polo shirt
& squirmed out of my dungarees.
Now you, I said, holding fast
to my underwear.
She unbuttoned her white blouse
& took it off; nothing much
there. Stood up & wriggled
out of her blue & black checked skirt;
her Catholic school uniform
& placed herself before me.
Let's go into the closet, she said.
I didn't know precisely why
she said that, but I didn't argue
with experience.
She left the door open
and removed her panties.
I stared at it; it was
so smooth,
so contained,
I could have looked forever.
Now you, she said. Dazed,
I slipped them off
feeling the heat rise
in my neck & face.
What thrills I had
looking & touching & licking
trouble.

Somewhere Sam is sweetly
making love to a microphone;
& Monk, that lover
of the inexpressable note,
has heard what he alone
is able to hear & is dancing
around his keys.
In due time
I will find them both
and they will be part
of the whole, the whole
crazy thing
we call
memory.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019

THE COFFEE SHOP COUNTESS

would jerk-off
a few of us
in jr. high school.
She'd sit there,
sipping hot cocoa,
a mountain
of whipped cream
mustaching her lip.
Her big brown eyes
mascara thick
watching us
loiter in our Mermaid Ave
Huba-Huba sanctuary.
She was part French
part Jewish and all firecracker hot,
though she chose her times
to ignite us. Mostly she sat,
reading and laughing at what she read
or what we said or what we did--
which was nothing much.
Sometimes she came over to one of us,
sat down and pushed her face into
one of our necks. Our breaths froze.
She would look into our eyes
& without warning,
kiss us,
sticking her tongue into our mouths,
& just as suddenly get up & leave.
Hardly any words were exchanged.
Other times she'd grab hold of a hand
and take one of us into a back booth.
She'd rub the outside of our jeans
until we came--it didn't take long.
Steve once asked if
he could touch her tit
for luck?
What's luck? she asked.
You know, he stumbled, good luck.
What is this good luck? she pressed.
Stickball, he said, we have a stickball game after school.
I don't know this stickball, she said, but here touch it.
We all watched as Steve stuck his hand down her blouse
and grinned the adolescent grin.

She never came back after that.
Bad luck for us: We lost her
& the game that day.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015