Hef Misses Barbi Benton By J.M. Green

Hef Misses Barbi Benton

Where’s the scarf you wore with morning coffee
on the patio where I would appear and you would whimper
and look away when I opened my robe and flashed you? Where’s the connection
that allowed me to look ridiculous with my little penis exposed in open air
and allowed you to scold me like a child playing with mud in his Sunday’s best?
“What is wrong with you,” you’d say with the sour mouth – poorly acted I might add.
I said nothing, just kissed your hand, twirled you, and wrapped you in a charcoal
terry cloth dance. By God every moment with you should be a silver screen moment.
I swear if I find your scarf I’ll never defile it the way I did with
so many other garments. I had to! I’m a fiscal conservative but a social liberal.
And you, you’re a traveler tangled in a dream that isn’t me.
Every hand on deck is looking for your scarf and this ship won’t sail one riffle
until they find it. You left again, but we’re bishops of love moving in diagonals.
I could be patient if I just had the scarf. Tonight, it could satisfy me more than the others.

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Bio: J.M. Green is the author of two chapbooks, The Novice Angler (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and Super Rich (Pudding House, 2008). Green is a librarian at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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