for Nicola



I’d never had a confidante before. You looked at me

like I was the salmon of knowledge, and, sure,

I knew calculus and could recite King Lear

and the periodic table of the elements,

and I was told I was a great kisser,

though I knew nothing of fucking,

and only pretended to have actually done it. 
We were getting ready to go out (out-out),

Levi’s and camisoles strewn about the bed,

hairspray hanging in the air, and that perfume

I brought back from summer in France—

we always pulled when we wore it—the Martini

bottle almost empty; we used to leave

a finger to prove we weren’t alcoholics. 
We’d been to the place in the inner city

to go on the pill, and we couldn’t stop laughing.

Let’s never get married, you said, afterwards,

and I said, never! though we both did.

Let’s always be confidantes, I said. You weren’t sure

what coffee donuts meant in this context, exactly,

but you signed up, regardless.