I wonder what has happened to the girls that I sighed after in my youth,
My bashful, tongue-tied youth. Those goddesses for me so unapproachable:
So capable of turning me to ashes with one withering glance
When clever openers, sweet compliments, were culled from song and film,
Rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed but never used except in wild daydream.
I wonder what they’re doing now, how skittish fortune’s dealt with them.
Perhaps, for most, their beauty’s well past use-by date……But so is mine.
Perhaps my sighs would now be with relief that that wall was not breached.
That’s not the point for, even then, I wish them well. They still have part in me.
The plumage of pretense de rigueur for the mating dance long moulted,
The years make me as comfortable with women as with men, surely with them.
No clever openings necessary now just open self with complement spontaneous.
No use to ask that magic grant me access though.
I can’t remember any of their names.