Forbidden
Catherine Greitzer
                                                        
Brooklyn’s Danny Zucco had nothing on him.
Strutting along the New York City streets, shoulders swaying side-to-side,
He had something going on, always had something going on.
Luxurious thick, dark blonde hair and unearthly pale blue eyes.
Pretty boy.
Soft, low, sexy whisper through slightly-crooked front teeth,
Made you want to push your lips into his just to feel them.
Knifed in the back,
Just missed his lung.
Black leather jacket saved him.
Big white bandage where some street hustler got him
During a crap game in Times Square.
Wounded bird syndrome.
Took him home, intoxicated with each other, made love like a thunderstorm.
Called me “baby” looking into my eyes the whole time.
Fury of passion: scarves, coats, gloves, buttons, zippers and underwear, slowly.
Smooth, hard muscles, boyish chest, hair that smelled like a new baby’s.
Like Robert Deniro, a beauty mark on his left cheek.
Fourth-floor walk-up to warm, sweet smelling apartment,
Some big, odorless pot boiling on the stove.
Down in the stairwell, he shook the white powder into a soda bottle cap,
Expertly cooked it up with a lighter and filled a used syringe.
My injection was first, small town girl eager to please.
Slammedrammedsmackedshoved!
No control of the heavy, iron-lung feeling that took over my body.
He got off and wanted to go hang out in Times Square.
Ain’t no way: I was a Gramercy Park girl.
Dragged him 50-odd blocks and cross town
To unlock the black iron gates of the private park I lived on.
Lead him like a school mistress in a “Madeline” story to shake that drugged stupor.
It had snowed, was still snowing and we laid down in the moonlight and made
Snow angels.
We rolled around on the ground, wearing warm clothes in the cold snow,
Kissed for hours, stopping now and then to witness the trees, the snowflakes,
The Moon’s Light.
Stayed together for years, on and off.
He was unfaithful, I was a workaholic. .
Smack was his drug; he, mine.
Repeatedly, I’d get up the courage to leave him and finally get strong again,
Then he’d show up with his pale blue eyes and black leather jacket,
Roses or irises in his fist.
I’d take him back, my gorgeous magnet,
Without a thought of the consequences.
I cut across 8^th Avenue and recognized his wavy blonde hair
In the huge publicity photo for “American Bufffalo”outside the Broadhurst Theatre.
Most women would swoon over his pretty-boy looks
Posed in confrontation with Al Pacino.
I, who knew him so well, couldn’t help but notice his pale, pinned eyes.
I turned away and dodging the oncoming crowds,
Raised my arm high in the air and hailed the first taxi I saw.
Catherine Greitzer
copyright  2002