For Nadya Ginsburg—

                    i.

Ashamed now of the love
I didn’t believe in then, wasn’t
even speaking to anyone when
she whispered, “Jonathan…”

no pseudonyms, not one
stage name given, in moments living
seems to begin again, how she went
from a figment of my

imagination to
someone just one glimpse does no justice,
someone with substance more into her
success than substances,

drunk as I have been since
on such ebullient eloquence, hands
tossed across continents consonants
divide themselves to split

differences in that
thing’s pronunciation, a dress or
a slip, whatever it is fingers
lift for my eyes, my lips

                    ii.

cover with kisses this
delicious dish catches as if her
body weren’t yet plastered all over
the Internet, silver

screen captures sore former
lovers envious of those curves use
to catfish others not so swift or
quick as she is to wit,

sizzling pixels just don’t
know the half of it, hacked hearts redact
by blacking-out what promises this
chick’s got me smitten hard,

craning my neck, turning
my head, anything to get a grip
of her strut up the boulevard, far
from shy she cannot be

ignored, neither she nor
her strong-willed truth-telling travelling
companion who court the herd, pasture
after pacifying those

                    iii.

gullible onlookers
who curse their own births, prefer to be
lured first to their cure for loneliness
before leaving this world,

fatal femmes who work it
out, strut the stroll with no remorse, no
need for words, just those white go-go boots
are all she keeps on board

to chart a course across
the stars, north from Hollywood toward
the club’s back door brunettes less cool fight
promoters for, ride-or-

die, only that powder-
blue négligée and her killer sense
of timing, like her style, work-over
managers whose bands were

not much more than virgin
turf for her to explore and turn from
amateurs to empires vultures and
vampires compete to score