Robert Cooperman

VALENTINE'S DAY BLIND DATE - PAULIE

She was waiting in front of her house,
with a bottle of champagne, so I thought,

“Wow, this is going to be so cool!”

In the car we toasted the fizzy volcano,
then she nuzzled beside me, her lips
nibbling like I was an Andes Mint,
my head a spinning dreidel.

At the restaurant, we tore through the courses,
her fingers playing inky-dinky spider
under the table, so I didn’t know
which way was up, and didn’t care.

But just as I was reaching for my Visa card,
she whipped out a piece the size
of the big guns on the USS Missouri,

took my wallet, everyone’s cash,
emptied the till, then grabbed my car keys,
and was gone like smoke blown
off a battlefield by a stiff wind.

After the cops grilled me
like a cheap cut of meat, I phoned
my brother’s wife Cindy, with murder
in my heart: her setting me up
with Bonnie and Clyde’s granddaughter,

though if Crystal had asked me
to go on the lam with her,
or even taken me hostage,
I’d have been out the door faster
than a steel rabbit at the dog track.


Gerald So's YouTube video reading of "Valentine's Day Blind Date...":



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Bob confesses: "Believe it or not, I read about this in the local paper; I may have embellished a tad, but the bones of the story were right in the small article. Sometimes art does follow life."


ROBERT COOPERMAN's latest collections are Go Play Outside (Apprentice House) and Reefer Madness (Kelsay Books). Forthcoming from Kelsay Books is A Nightmare on Horseback.