Whale Watching

A Gulf of Mexico hurricane blew her to the Oregon Coast,

where we met.

After titillation in a sacred grove of cedars,

we ate awful Chinese food washed down with weak gin and tonics.

We laughed when she said her mother told her to fuck me,

and I said that a great line for a country song

Nashville would never write.

Next I was hiking up her ruffled red dress,

tugging her red hair,

smearing her chest

with a scorpion tattoo

and seashell necklace

against the glass in a Depoe Bay motel room

overlooking gray whales spouting for tourists.

Her straw cowboy managed to stay on.

Oceans and orgasms her favorite expression.

I used it in a story later.

We drank a bottle of white wine.

She smoked on the balcony,

told me of her bi-polar disorder,

about manic moods.

The medicine was dissolving her teeth.

Her description.

I used it in a story later.

I was her ticket out of Depoe Bay,

Jack Nicholson’s favorite cocaine village during the filming of

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,

her living in a trailer three times her age,

cleaning motel rooms.

I was close to offering.

She never suspected,

but I suspected she wouldn’t need it in the end.