New York Stories: Reel

Photo: “Intersection, Night” by Anna Witiuk

Reel

I asked you to take me somewhere,
after I pulled you out of the middle
of the movie, like in the movies
when the girl asks the boy,
so he takes her to the place
where his father first taught him how to fly
a model airplane. You took me to the lake,
had no reason for it, nothing better to do at your age.
But there were ten more stars
in the sky than in my city,
and you were warm.
On the goose-shit dock you knelt
before me, could not come up this time
to look at me, to touch me.
I pulled you in, asking What? You shook
your head, then my hips, squeezed me
so hard to wring the sweet from me,
and make it easier for you to turn and drive off,
leaving me to connect
the goose splatter with the stars,
or whatever it is that little girls do.