but only dates men.
She does a keybump
while I take a three minute piss.
None for me, I say,
I have cancer.
We talk while taking turns
on the toilet.
And then we dance back to the bar,
where Nina orders a moscow mule,
and I order a club soda.
LCD Soundsystem comes on.
Nina kisses me casually,
as she has done for years,
a ham-fisted friend with benefits,
and who am I to argue?
We've been doing this
for four years,
since she had blonde hair
and dark eyebrows.
But she is a collector of clowns,
and I am ugly but funny.
"You're a poet first," she said
"and a human second."
After, at the bodega,
she steals chocolate milk
and we do Etheline and Royal's walk
through Prospect Park.
On her South Slope stoop,
she kisses me again and says
"Write me a poem
like Frank O'Hara tonight."
"Already did," I say
and then she invites me up
to see how she can balance
a coffee mug on her hip.