Lewd Descending a Staircase by Melissa Hintz

 

 

Does being here make you feel like you’re in an Italian porn film?

 

                                                                 I have never been asked this question before.

Much less by a stranger

at a writers’ workshop

on a bucolic college campus

walking down the sweeping marble staircase

to the basement Rathskellar for open mic.

 

Truth to tell, I would not know the difference

 between an Italian porn film and one from, say, Australia,

although perhaps the latter might have more koalas and kangaroos.

 

I am stumped. 

Unlike my halcyon college days, forty years ago, 

when I had a ready answer to do you believe in free love?

and I’d toss off it's worth what it costs, 

I ponder the question.

 

What is it that evokes this image for you?

Do you see cleavage in the verdant rolling hills?

Do you see masculine celebration

in the white columns that adorn every red-brick building?

Or the lampposts—

sturdy ten-foot black poles topped with white oval globes?

 

White wicker rockers on long covered porches 

might work for a kiss, but hardly a tryst.

 

Venetian blinds everywhere here, not Venetian blondes.

No minx in minks

nor naked nubile nymphs 

grace this campus,

though the founding father’s statue stands erect—

stern, whiskered, in top hat and great coat.

Hardly studly.

 

Somehow Signor, 

I do not see your role in this film,

with your plaid shirt, slight paunch, and scruffy beard.

Your sandaled feet would not sweep a maiden off hers, even if you shed the socks.

 

We have reached the bottom step.

Italian porn film?

I think not.

Perhaps, 

though, 

                                                                                     Goodbye Mr. Chips.