By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 15 January 1999

there she blows

it really doesn't matter that
the editor in me circled
all the misspelled words
in the love poems he wrote
for me when we first began
and it's inconsequential, really
the way I wondered self-consciously
how we looked holding hands
me in a dress
him in a marijuana t-shirt turned
inside out
that's small fries compared to
what I was, mostly
and how I felt
risking quite a lot
shouting my defiance
to the world
sacrificing self-respect and
other nice luxuries
just to be with him
so gladly
so freely
so completely alive

of course in retrospect
    I know
it was my show, my drama
it was just his game
and I'm not ashamed
apalled, perhaps
but not ashamed
       I named him my Lover, my First
   in many ways
and all the rest goes
but that, of course, stays