Belle Randall
Poet & Writer
Metrical Poems#

AMOROUS FRIENDSHIP
Well, hasn't it been one long, monstrous,
returned, but unrequited love affair,
as I predicted once, in the words of Yeats,
yearning for spring, with winter in the air?
No, not an affair; and unrequited? Hell,
hardly dreamt of, really. Call it friendship
and forget the amore -- this, as I recall,
was your advise. Sound, but I defended
my choice of words. Affair here represented
not sex, but desire -- mine -- and hurt in the heart
perceiving, again and again, something as ended,
whereas friends need have no fear in being apart,
and do not phone for weeks and yet stay calm,
undisturbed by music that's not on.

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A LETTER TO THE BABY-SITTER
You had carte blanche of fridge. We knew you searched
our drawers and tried my Shalimar and shoes.
You were a normal teenage girl, This was
a Norman Rockwell cover, and if you found
Blue Velvet and the velvet-lined fake book
that housed our marijuana stash and deemed
us hypocrites therefore -- oh well. Whatever.
If when 'the' husband drove you home and reached
across your lap to crack your door, you felt
his heat and ran to tell your diary:
'When he goes home he pours his lust for me
between her legs, and she, poor thing, is grateful,'
you might not be wrong, who lie awake alone,
imagining yourself victorious.



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