cheap shot

so i'm having a dream about
a guy i had a big crush on back in
high school, a basketball player
named David.
**
i am just sliding my tongue
down his long lean belly
toward his smooth lovely
cock, when, there IS A KNOCK
ON THE DOOR TO OUR APARTMENT!!! (in
the dream, we are both still 18, and
we seem to have just gotten
an apartment together, all of which is
just fine by me!!) well, after
the knock on our door,
an exaggerated look of panic appears
on David's handsome face.
we both get dressed in a hurry, he
opens the door, and,
yes indeed, his parents are
standing there right outside
in the hallway. he sputters,
says "come in", or "just a minute"
or something like that. meanwhile,
the apartment adjoining ours has
mysteriously sprouted a door
that leads directly into our
bathroom, and people from
the apartment next door are
looking into our own apartment with a great
deal of curiosity and disapproval
written all over their smug prying faces.
somehow, we send his parents
away for a while. we close
and lock the mysteriously-
appeared door that leads
into our bathroom from the
adjoining apartment. David and i are
again naked, kissing, fondling,
again deliriously happy that
FINALLY WE GET TO HAVE SEX!!!
i have never wanted
anything so much in my entire life.
we spent our entire senior year
of high school in denial about our love for
each other, but now we've moved in together,
told each other how we feel, and now WE FINALLY
GET TO HAVE SEX!!!
he is my first love, my
first lust. i could just
eat him up. then, the curtains on the
windows glide open. people are milling
around outside our apartment. he is
jittery, unhappy, unwilling;
this is not to be: there
will be no sex with him tonight. i wake up,
sad, frustrated, angry. that which
never happened, never gets to.
not even in a dream.
**
36 years was a long time ago,
but to have it again within my
grasp, and, then have it snatched away--
that just seems
cruel, unbearable, and downright mean.
**
whoever said "a man's reach should
exceed his grasp" had obviously
never dreamed about David, 6'5", 9".

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem appeared in Poetz.com, April 4, 2006.)