Every so often the sins dredge themselves
From the muck, and I know it’s
Like one of those omens, I’m supposed to remember
And regret and feel chastened afterwards
As if I’d just taken a bath in holy water.

Only it doesn’t work that way. They’re kinda
Neat to conjure up in my fevered imagination
And when they come bursting in my head like
Fourth of July fireworks, the color and noise
Makes me want to linger there to see if there’s any
More of this good stuff at the fair.

This morning I’m remembering the time when the
Girl I swore I loved and would forever had gone to the bathroom
Leaving me in the hall with Liz, and when the door snapped shut,
Liz and I kissed hotly ( I can still taste her tongue in my mouth)
Until we heard the final swish of toilet water.

Afterwards, with the love of my life coming down the hall,
We stood there amazed and kind of bemused,
With those dumb, goofy smiles on our faces
That writ our guilt in neon to anyone who could read.
My girlfriend, sensing a disturbance in the Force, began to cry
Until we both shouted out, with the fervor of the Born Again
That nothing had happened, honey; nothing.

She believed me. Us. And to this day I wonder how we pulled it off
And how easily the lie came to both our lips and how suddenly the
Passion, which was a bolt of lightning, blazed and vanished because
Liz and I never got nearer than a telephone line again.

A silly thing to remember, I guess, until I remember it was not the first
Or worst of the sins I committed in the name of lust and fire. In fact, I could argue
I only honed the skills of the sinner and pulled them off with more panache as
Time went by, and still walked away from most of them wondering, if
There was a lesson to be learned, why I didn’t seem to get it
And why in the light of mornings after, no saint ever checked my homework.

01/30/2013

Posted on 01/30/2013
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch