Love Affair | 1 |
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In Las Vegas, | 2 |
buildings stand huddled together | 3 |
like young hoodlums, | 4 |
hands stuck in pockets, | 5 |
waiting | 6 |
for the first chance | 7 |
to reel you in for a dollar. | 8 |
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Lazy electric light shows and | 9 |
concrete basins of chlorinated water | 10 |
holding cement schooners. | 11 |
Brazen buccaneers | 12 |
crowded around expensive adobe “tenements,” | 13 |
curtains billowing in the wind | 14 |
like sails. | 15 |
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City scenes of love unroll on the street | 16 |
in a cellophane crackle and a wash | 17 |
of askance sidewalk glances, | 18 |
tossed in with broken memories | 19 |
of grocery lists and | 20 |
widening piles of laundry, | 21 |
and | 22 |
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suddenly, | 23 |
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we see her: | 24 |
the pain of growing old | 25 |
piling onto her body in layer | 26 |
upon layer | 27 |
of fat, | 28 |
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and | 29 |
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he steps in: | 30 |
two white sticks | 31 |
of legs poking down | 32 |
from rotund gut and ass, | 33 |
venturing into the sunshine, | 34 |
a feeble wax sidewalk strut. | 35 |
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Perhaps it was | 36 |
a glance through a crowd | 37 |
of youthful, bickering couples – | 38 |
a dead stare love affair | 39 |
in a sea of golden skin | 40 |
and blond hair | 41 |
whipping | 42 |
around designer frames. | 43 |
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But, the needle of desire pricked her, | 44 |
piercing through | 45 |
the pleasure | 46 |
of comped drinks and | 47 |
nickel poker | 48 |
after an hour and | 49 |
forty dollars | 50 |
pumped into eye strain and blue screens – | 51 |
Jacks or better. | 52 |
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He was her one armed bandit – | 53 |
spinning wheels of | 54 |
possibility | 55 |
coming to rest at three sevens | 56 |
on Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road | 57 |
with a wet-eyed Wisconsin grin. | 58 |