1. For You
You always said
I only wrote poems about those bitches.
So this poem, like this drink
I’m making just for you.

I would have liked to read it aloud to you
while you lay next to me in bed, the covers pushed down or
over fresh coffee in the morning before work or
on the beach shielding our eyes to an orange sun or
while seated on a bench in a park at midnight or
in the bathroom while I shower and you brush you your teeth or
on the bus going somewhere we weren’t quite sure of yet or
over dinner in a restaurant that had plastic bamboo plants in pots or
holding you in my hands like hot water in a motel bathtub.

But you left too abrupt,
blamed me for not giving you enough.
Now this is a poem for
another one of those bitches.

I hope you liked it.

2. Walking back to my apartment
She makes me promise.
I say what she wants me to say,
knowing I’ve broken promises
to God, the dead and women
who mattered a lot more than her.

Stephen J. Golds was born in the U.K, but has lived in Japan for most of his adult life. He enjoys spending time with his daughters, reading books, traveling, boxing and listening to old Soul LPs. Glamour Girl Gone, his debut novel, will be released by Close to The Bone Press on January 29th, 2021. Follow him on Twitter @SteveGone58.