To hear me reading a slightly different version of this poem at the Drew 2010 Winter Residency, click

The first time,

in the Rittenhouse Radisson, was to
be wicked hot, me and her and her girl-
friend who even then was coughing up blood
and hiding it. I kissed the one and then
the other, the first time, when our worry was
jealousy. The first time she hid her blood-
stained panties in tangled sheets for the first
time. Each hand deep in a competing cunt,
she howled and whooped, the first time, three days
after the report said melanoma.
We were innocent, the first time, with more
hands than Kali but not enough to shield
liver and lungs, spleen and spine. The first time
we had a great time, time we would not have.