[ Bio ]
[posed in 1994 by Priscilla Pope, co-owner of Budget Tapes & Records (Charleston, WV) as the first question during a job interview]
The Marine on day leave, hair & eyes tight
with formality, hands trembling as if a shot rang out,
stepped into the sex room, winced to witness
oils that made incense out of flesh, raspberry-
flavored edible undies, illustrated books,
the vibrating tongue, the inflatable Fuck-Ewe,
padded whips & porn films—shelves &
spinning racks lined with so many physical tools
for the psyche’s work. Faster than a charge through
artillery bursts & rifle rounds, he snapped up
a simple flesh-tone—“shaped like the real thing.”
At the checkout counter, he missed my gaze
like a blind marksman, said, muffled, through barely-
open lips, “for my wife when I’m not here,”
his packaged prosthetic proof to her he loved her,
cared about her human needs. But I, with my coolly-
devilish young man’s grin & earlier offer—
“help you find what you’re looking for?”—
demoralized him more than twenty bodies, bloody,
bayonetted at his feet: that I might think him kinky,
gay, might mock him. He stood there erect &
engorged with flush while I took his money,
then he turned away without his change,
exited mumbling: “something, something, love . . .”
Ace Boggess of Huntington, WV, is author of one book of poem, The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish was Not Fulfilled, published in 2003 by Highwire press, and several unpublished literary novels currently being shopped to editors. His poems have appeared in Harvard Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry East, Blue Mesa Review, Atlanta Review and similar journals. Currently he is promoting his new CD featuring 13 original songs, many of which can be found on the web as free mp3s at www.besonic.com/aceboggess or artist.amazon.com/aceboggess.
This poem copyright 2005 Ace Boggess. Do not reproduce without permission.