At the Concert, I Make a Discovery
Cecil Morris
The line for the women’s long, as always,
women grouped and waiting, no men around,
as usual, so I slip into the men’s,
to shuttered stalls and camaraderie
of urinals and bank of sinks, all unused.
I take by force of habit given choice
the farthest stall, one side wall, modicum
of safety, and see there in neat black print
on the grout: Jane gives good head. Jane swallows.
And there still the number I had a decade
ago, the old landline, and wondered, as I
relieved myself and sighed, which guy I knew
or had known back then would have come in here
to crow and defame and how often has it
been called and how much annoyance have
my past adventures caused some other less
accommodating soul. I thought of calling
that old number myself, of saying Hi,
this is Jane, but didn’t. Instead, I thought
of Ozymandias and Sappho and how we,
even those of us with children, leave only
fragments behind us in the rushing world.
Cecil Morris retired after 37 years of teaching high school English, and now he tries writing himself what he spent so many years teaching others to understand and (he hopes) to enjoy. He has poems appearing or forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Hole in the Head Review, New Verse News, Rust & Moth, Willawaw Journal, and elsewhere. He and his patient partner, the mother of their children, divide their year between the cool Oregon coast and California’s relatively dry Central Valley.
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