This poem is taken from PN Review 100, Volume 21 Number 2, November - December 1994.

Five Poems

Charles Boyle

Species
When you look at me as if to say
That 's the first meaningful thing you 've said in months
I immediately want to take it all back
into a small purse, and let someone else pay.

I want to get drunker than I was last April
and not to be bothered to do all the things I suddenly know
I can do without trying.
I want to hand in my notice.
I want to be wearing my trusty blue shirt.
I want to have such omnivorous sex it's beyond all reasonable
   doubt
that in twenty years' time someone will tap me on the
   shoulder and say dad.
I want to go back twenty years to a Friday evening in the Café
   Amphitryon
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