Bridget C. told me
she wanted to jump my bones
and shoved her tongue
down my throat.
She was the first girl
who ever wanted me,
and she was tall and gorgeous,
big brown eyes,
long legs,
short black skirt,
and I couldn’t believe
my luck.
I remember
my hard-on pushing
against the button-fly of my black jeans
and the taste of clove cigarettes
mixed with lipstick
as we waited in line for the club
at Knott’s Berry Farm,
with all the other teenagers,
then made out again later
in a photo booth
and in Joe Hwang’s bedroom
where she let me touch
her breasts.
In a couple weeks
she’d dump me
to get back with her ex-boyfriend, Brian,
and I’d spend the summer brooding in my bedroom
tearing up photo booth memories
and wearing out
Joy Division records,
followed by decades of fleeting romances,
forgotten flings,
loneliness,
divorce,
none of which I knew about yet
that Saturday night.
Clint Margrave is the author of several books of fiction and poetry, including Lying Bastard, Salute the Wreckage, The Early Death of Men, and Visitor. His work has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Rattle, The Moth, Ambit, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others.