Soon, all my stories
will be told backwards.
My ingénue will
find love in the first act.
Deflowered in the second,
by the third, she is writing
entries in her journal:
boys she identifies
with cryptic nicknames.
And I’ll learn too late
administrators
lie and deceive,
yet use this knowledge
for purposeful blackmail:
I’ve slept with their wives,
serially or in pairs,
winning their trust
with pears and figs.