Well, since I had a recent request for this particular cycle of poems, I thought, "What the hell?"
Later, upon entering it, I thought, "What the hell, indeed!"
This was written some twenty years ago, when I was a very impulsive, very self-absorbed, very lonely seventeen-year-old. Despite what the fourth poem in the cycle may say, I had certainly never "known" a man -- in the Biblical sense -- but I am suprised (and somewhat appalled) at how much of that poem is correct (in a very idealized sense, of course).
Truth to tell, the whole thing faintly embarrasses me now. I submitted it to my High School's resident (female) poetry expert, who passed it on to her male counterpart, and when I got the papers back with his editing comments on it, I could've died! The following year, I found myself sitting in his English class, the memory of that fourth poem perpetually burning in my brain. However, we never spoke of it, and I continued to submit poetry to him for critique, or, more rarely, approval. He would merrily slash away at all my favorite bits until the work was no longer recognizable as my own, but now I have an idea of what he was getting at, and now, at age 37, I like to think I have finally found some rhythm and subtlety, instead of mere awkward verbosity.
The chances of the man seeing this are pretty slim, because he knew me by a different name, for one thing, and for another, it would not surprise me at all if he was one to eschew computers, but --
Mr. Crowley, if you are out there, do you remember your snoozing, snoring literary mag editor from the class of 1980? You took me seriously when I was still pretty bloody awful as a writer of any kind. If you hadn't -- well, I wouldn't be shamelessly publishing myself on a website, that's for dang sure!
Everyone else -- honest to God, I assure you, when I wrote Number 4, I really and truly did not have a clue...
And Geeeeeeeeeesela -- is this as good as you remembered it being? LOL!
C.P.