Ancient Porn

A time or two weekly, decades ago,
gave evidence that you were meant for me.
The news came courtesy of VHS
and soon sunk in, and when my favorite film
in which you starred came out on DVD
I made the leap -- less to keep returning
as religiously as I once did, more to have you
close at hand in case I might feel lonely
in a way that made me think you needed me.

Late adopter as I’ve since become
it’s finally more than clear, even to me,
that I could get a date with you again
by going online. This disk I’ve now let play
beginning to end, for the first time ever,
is the last of its kind I’ll watch, as I’ve begun,
if slow as the tortoise, to jettison things
there’s little secondary market for –
some technologically passé, and in your case
outré as well. You’d just add pathos
at best, revulsion at worst, to the chores
my absence will create for the bucket brigade
engaged in parsing me as an estate.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, you wore
your incandescent smile from the first day
that you got hired, your eyes as bright a blue
as your denim shirt and jeans that looked brand new.

Your smile was the only thing that you kept wearing,
even in the midst of plowing through
the cowboys scripted to switch sides for you,
all victims of The Method.
The fun you were having that didn’t look
like acting, more like this was you for real,
distinguished you; enraptured me. And now,
as then, a rainbow’s come and gone.

Lazily I kept on watching, letting each subsequent scene
achieve its happy end until the last one had you riding off
into a sunset toward another town, another ranch
presumably, this time though with a cowpoke friend.

The soundtrack changed from steel guitars to a bar beat;
the credits rolled. A pretty good studio portrait
of you appeared that I freeze-framed.
It made me think way back to how I looked
when I was young along with you
and dirty blonde to your brunette.

Funny. Now I kind of mind the way you wore your hair
and beard, that one misplaced tattoo. But listen,
fussy newfound faults like these mean nothing,
nothing at all compared to the gifts you showered me with
and have bequeathed, those nights I stayed inside to be
among the tricks you turned. You helped keep me alive.

Lucky you, you’ll always be this young.
What? No? Alright, I’ll walk that back.
I think I understand what you want me to say.

How could you not want to be here and doing
the work you bet you’d still be in demand for,
on demand for. How could you not want to taste
even the chaste kiss of an elder admirer,
this smudge I without overthinking it
just left onscreen -- playing Prince Charming
to wake and cure of death his poisoned King.

This soft touch from the heart to the hardcore,
this is what you’d have been living for.

First published in The Hopkins Review