Love Me Never
Sara Wolf
It’s the year of the flamingo and I’m all pink,
my lips, my nails, my moustache, and ass
pink like a watermelon’s meat and, ooo,
I’m hot, baby, like the Fireball we’re drinking
as we stand around the casino and play craps,
and even though I always bet the dice will pass,
I never win in a way that makes me fabulously rich,
but in a Frank O’Hara sense, I’m wealthy,
I’m young, I’m hot, I have friends who are a little more
than just interesting, small, and tall and all
of them flashing a light in their eyes that makes me think,
yeah, we’re not successful in a retire-by-thirty-
leverage-your-youth-for-a-shot-in-your-fifties
kind of way, but, blow for me real quick, doll,
watch this roll, the chances of us falling in love
tonight snake eyed and dangerously sharp,
but actually, don’t love me at all. I’m so sick
of the same cheesy rom coms with some sopping
male protagonist who’s really a misunderstood artist
bowing down at the stoop of his ex-girlfriend,
Sarah Marshall, and fuck that white picket
fence nonsense–we know what he’s really there
for, and it’s not an elaborately orchestrated plot
to marry. He doesn’t even have a ring yet
and Cher’s character in Moonstruck said it best
when she made that man she didn’t love get down
on his knees in the middle of the Italian restaurant
and give up his own jewelry, because if you want to ask
for somebody’s hand, you get down and you flash a band,
a stone, or something silver and maybe even gold,
so what’ll it be? Are we betting to lose tonight, or are we
looking at a glass of riesling for you and a red
for me, the pink of my tongue resting on the back
of my teeth as the dice tumble, turn, and read
our futures, the white dots of the numbers
like lights on the street of divine intentions,
and what’s more heavenly than gambling, drinking with your
lover, and flamingos all over the bath towels?