Greg Moglia - Two Poems

The Silk Nightie

The sales associate at Victoria’s Secret is all smiles

I ask her the guy question I’m not sure about the size

She gives my aged lines that “so you got yourself a trophy” look and says

Give me an idea about her frame

I say About the same as you, kinda slim, tall…

Then she surprises me This for the wife?  No, a girl friend

Now a gossipy gleam in her eye

Oh, about how old is she?

 I say firmly She’s 68.

Now, she glows, I’ve just become a  geezer sweetheart

She flips to a caring mode

Maybe, you want something more subtle?

Oh great!  Back to married nights  and birth control jammies

Oh no, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry I just thought you might go for something quieter

Yeah, I say We do try to have old fogey sex…nice and quiet

God forbid a yell, a deep moan, a screech - wake the neighbors

She says Well, sorry again just trying to be helpful

I say There’s more to look forward to than you believe

Frank

The science teachers party at your home and I meet George - your friend

 I begin to wonder, Frank - you may be one of the guys I joked about 

Subject of endless ridicule - homo, queer, fag…

But you were my chair and I needed the job

Then the morning we found my classroom door broken

Blood stained…lab scales gone

The superintendent of schools calls you to his office

The same guy who says to his teachers on opening day 1969

You folk in nigger heaven back there

Come on down to the front seats

And Frank I see you after that meeting 

 Looking so troubled and pale - holding a tiny book 

Poems of Emily Dickinson and I say

Is she any good? and you said

At this time she’s very good

Easy to guess what the boss said, A fag like you…

And I could see your life in compartments

As mine - pretending an interest in Chemistry

And the easy world of sexuality I grew into

Us and those others - the gay guys - never to meet

But you’re my boss and as nice as could be

I think of a dinner party - three long married couples

As we leave I move to shake my friend Paddy’s hand

I move too close and stop -yes, I only shook his hand

But know inside… a kiss 

Greg Moglia's work has appeared in over 300 journals in the U.S., Canada, England, India, Australia, Sweden,Austria and Belgium.as well as five anthologies. Among the journals - Peregrine, Southern Humanities Review, English Journal, South Carolina Review, Tampa Review, Wisconsin Review.