Our High School Football Coach, The Philosopher

The coach stood
on a wooden bench,
looking down at us.
He pulled on the brim
of his baseball cap,
tufts of curly black hair
exploding from the sides
like drunken clouds.
A silver whistle tied
to a black shoestring
hung from his neck.
We braced ourselves-
shoulder pads strapped
to our sweaty frames.
He cleared his throat,
pointing at us
with a thick index finger
"Don't," he said,
pausing to spit tobacco juice
on the floor below him.
"Don't let your heads
get messed up by skirts.
Tits are not everything!"

Our eyes dropped.
We silently wondered
what was everything?

"Your mothers have tits,"
he said and walked out
of the locker room
with a look on his face
which resembled the look
of Socrates in our textbooks

 

Cultural Differences

With the Internet down
and his wife in Texas
at a teacherss convention,
Bill was in a bind.
He had the house to himself,
a refrigerator full of beer,
a fresh box of Kleenex,
and no access to pornography.

So he went through the closet
and dug out the Karma Sutra video
he bought his wife
for their sixth anniversary.
They had only watched it once
but never got past
the Lovemaking of the Cow.
However, Bill was aroused
by the woman on the video
and later made love to his wife
in the standard missionary position.

After watching it for ten minutes,
Bill grabbed his coat,
a pair of sunglasses,
his baseball hat and car keys
and drove to the video store.
Call him an incorrigible Westerner,
but Bill far preferred watching
the Reverse Cowgirl
to anything called the Black Bee.

 

Trim

Jon scratched his goatee,
looking out the window
for the pizza delivery boy.
“Can I ask you something
without you thinking i’m gay?”
he asked and looked as grave
as Lincoln on the penny.
“Sure,” I said, “we’re married men.
Not that means anything.”
I winked, and Jon laughed.
Then he became serious again.
“Do you trim?” he asked.
“You mean my goatee?” I said.
Jon shook his head.
“No, I mean your pubes.
Do you trim your pubic hair?”
I told him only porn stars
trim their pubic bush.
It was an illusion to make
their cocks seem longer.
Jon shot me a cold look.
“No. You’re wrong,” he said.
“A lot of guys trim their bush.
Women do it. Why shouldn’t we?
My wife loves it.
I trim mine into a trapezoid.”
I looked at him and shrugged.

Then our pizza arrived.
We ate it without
another word exchanged.
And never talked
about trimming again.

 

My Wife Has The Memory Of An Elephant

My wife and I lay on the couch
watching the evening news
and sipping coffee
after a dinner of leftover chicken.
We both groaned
as the weathermen
followed a storm up the coast
with a stiff right arm
then shook his head,
as if apologizing for the snow.
Out of nowhere, my wife
asked me if I remembered
a night before we were married,
when she caught me flirting
with a young blonde at a bar.
Although I honestly didn’t
remember the night in question
and blamed it on the beer,
she proceeded to relay
exact excerpts from my conversation
with this strange woman
before the weatherman
finished his five-day forecast.

 

Beauty Breaks, Tabs Destroy

A blonde waitress
with her hair in braids
brought us another pitcher
of Coors Light.
She leaned over
and placed it in front of us,
giving Cracker and me
a golden glimpse
of her C-cups.
She caught us staring
and smiled before leaving
to attend to a party
of three older men.
Cracker took my empty glass
and poured me a beer.
“Here’s the thing,” he said,
lighting a cigarette
to collect his thoughts.
“I just fell in love
with our waitress.
Women don’t know
what their bodies do to me.
They break my heart
and rip out my soul.
I can’t handle it.
Those beautiful titties.
They’re killing me, Nate.
I swear to God they are.”

Two hours later our waitress
cut us off and dropped the large tab
in front of us.
Cracker looked at the bill.
“That mean bitch charged us
for every goddamn drink.”