By Patricia Spears Jones

He’s my charming gentleman
My sometimes sweet man

Sparks fly from his shoes
Dew drops off his brow

He’s trouble because he’s so easy
to please or tease, Oh
but he’s someone else’s good time man.

He has a plan for handling volatile emotional gear.
He shares it with like-minded fellows in bars and Starbucks.
Between the whiskeys or the lattes, they nod in agreement
and plot their own version of events.

Human stories have shapes that are hard to damage.
Triangles may be divine or soap opera,
Defined by bodies and timing.

It’s not all tears and stupidity
If it was only these, there’d be no poetry

And yet, as the pear trees lining Sterling Place shiver
his musk rises from out of a fever and there’s no stopping
the memory of an amazing fuck.

It’s all good. For the moment (s). All good. Until a phone call
or an encounter in the wrong place. Discretion and dignity
and good home training come to play. There will be no hussy business here:
only a smart movement of La Regina, honorable in her own way.

Business is business and love can be an asset or a deficit.
It depends on smile, guile, the pluck of a woman
who plans for her future without ALL THIS DRAMA.

She’s got game. She’s got her heart. She’s standing at the bar
beautiful, serene.
Gift in hand and ready to say,
Farewell, been good to let you go.