Time now for the old Joy charm to get reactivated
and to leave my grand inquisitor
role with women. My charms! How I loved and hated
it, laughed, and got found out giving
so where you living?
for a best line. "I'm never at home. Get me at work. South Yarra.
An apartment." she smiled and all my choices narrowed;
Soph heard me, I heard Soph, breathing.
Acquired, under a week I'd visit her.

I stood. "Not guilty" the foreman announced. Hearing her gasp,
"Kevin, we won!" didn't embarrass.
She was the girl I wanted. You can't love that much
for me, I only love winners.
Like raw beginners
stalking themselves we were starting again. So cautious as a rule,
quicker, quicker, I shedded my forged cover of cool,
toting up grass, perfume, dinners;
whatever she'd want; clothing, trips to Paris.

allowing them to hand across advice. Next time obey
the eleventh commandment, Kevin:
don't get caught. As smart poodles are needed, they
could amuse with class, help fashion
our celebrations:
champagne whose titles I didn't know how to properly pronounce:
corks to blast the ceiling, the suite drenched. Events had bounced
beyond my imagination;
one party made its approximate heaven

into this glorious shunting yard: anyone of use
either on dope or a retainer.
My dreams, proposals, orders, turning themselves true.
us Joy Boys playing employers;
this wad of lawyers
soaking up the dregs they lived off; loving it, not getting enough
of The Tadmans, Sandford and Georgie, Patty (off the stuff
at last). For our guests were voyeurs
over a life they need never explain or
even have to bother much.

Cross. S.K. The directory named a smallish block of flats.
Sweet small events had blown my cover.
What were they than odd beautiful occasions? That's
them alone, honey-bunch: love-shows,
the simplest tableaux:
in court she's writing him a note. For Kev, it's bullion at the tip.
Find better, God or the world got told. She cared, he flipped,
it would be on. I see a row
of scenes preparing me for my new lover,

Soph for me. A future opens, even the present closes.
He's catching a cab in a heat wave:
a man with this enormous bouquet of roses.
What more is needed to snap ffft
at the past? (Go sift
the dust masquerading as my life. Find better? You won't.) Someone
helped: the foyer was unchecked. I ignored the intercom;
can't recall any of the lift-
ride up to Soph's. Chrissie, with that look you gave,

you think me some sucker? Those seconds at her door were spent
feeling my heart clobber every rule
of organisation. This woman was different.
Sure, I knew it; almost fearing
(and yet near daring)
her to package me (Prime Cut, Blue Ribbon, taken back to mother).
Who or what taught Sophie Cross to blush and recover,
cooing, "Well, aren't you a darling!"?
Camberwell Church of England Grammar School?

How many seconds was I sent mad-and-a-half, mad squared
with waiting to kneel, tongue-kiss her clit
and see what followed? (As if I wasn't aware!)
Hearing she was "crazy for you
Kev', how does class screw
I mused, real class? With my heartbeats refusing to take up the slack,
and Soph at her bathroom door saying how she'd be back
(O, such a sweet routine: I knew
it all by rote!). Then, smiling, she returned, split,
and I entered. We were, you gotta hear this one, Chrissie,
love-making. No less. Think of these words:
love, making. And more: getting told how she'd missed me
unhinged enough: I turned too mute
for following suit
exactly, but knew if other women existed I was tamed
if ever she said so; making me nearly ashamed
I'd contemplated Rent-a-Root
back in remand; since, now they or my Joy Birds

were plain tarts boring me. It showed. That week I would conceal
little; and giving those dogs the shove -
a long life might verge on near perfect: with one real
lady-lady ripe for the raging.
Think I'd be paging
Dial-a-Date? To soak that excess cash I'd gotten at last to spend?
Don't shit me. Don't play me further games of let's pretend.
Please use a few brains; imagine
Chrissie, how we were blessed by the Gods of Love!

Cupid and his gang! Oh, he exists. I saw him tonight.
That young wog that signalled Kim's return,
your arrival. These thoughts may feel a certain trite
but love, dope, cash, friends: in a sense
there's little difference.
A god or my wog? A need was satisfied. He made me happy
as Kim can, you would and, as always, Sophie wraps me
in, get this, Joy. If fuck sessions
alone were love (I've gotten around to learn,

the pleasant way, they aren't), but, to imagine, if they were:
we'd want the lot. Plus. Being so wired
to getting. (No wonder people always need more.
or fall for acts like that stupid
mock-flirting you did
back when our evening opened.) Just by wanting it love can be smack.
Don't I know what the world needs now, Mister Bacharach!
Acting my version of Cupid:
ensuring it will receive all that's required;
we're mad for drugs! What couldn't be given were I to have,

Kaiser Stuhl, Carlton and United,
the Dom Perignon stunt? The lot: arise, Sir Kev!
Gobble this oyster! See these pearls?
Keep them please! Unfurl
your coat of arms, what a smart silk matching shirt and tie you're sporting!
But since, Chrissie, Kim and me and yes you are importing
love first (money later) I tell
you that makes for true danger. And they're frightened.