Million Dollars

You wound spindly fingers through my
hair, letting our bodies
lie in sweating heaps-
the summer's sun no stranger
to our bedside.

Folsom Prison Blues
played all night
each night
of the summer months
and we splished around
in public fountains
and whispered to pigeons
that alighted near.

I wanted to shake my hips
like Elvis and
you were trying to play
like Jerry Lee
and together
we made crazy rhythms
in the hazy 3 am
clouds of our 
winded apartment,
neon smoldering in view.

Walking to the bodega
in booty shorts
and a bra 
to pick up a late-night
pack of fags
to soothe our raging
nerves,
the heat propelling our
heady desires
to higher altitudes
than maybe
even 
Sears Tower.

Lying on the threadbare Persian
rug,
I sipped at cold coffee
as you loved on the
upright piano,
who screamed out
in glee
under your deft touch.
My voice husky
with humidity
I said
I'd kiss you any day.

And Johnny killed
his man in Reno,
while we hung our heads and
cried.
The subways trundling along the 
tracks each minute
all over our island,
pulsating with
perpetual funk.

My frizzy hair tickled
your face
as we slept side by side
on the cool linoleum,
that early dawn
place where the wind breathes
sweet and cool,
the newspaper men 
chucks bundles
to each stoop.
The stars yawn in exhaustion.

A summer of swelter
I played you
like a guitar
as you pounded
out Jerry Lee's genius
and we never flipped the record.

Our hands trembling with
divinity,
a quick touch from god
to cool our fevered foreheads,
a sweaty glissando 
in the night.