The First Time You Fuck Your Best Friend's Mother

The first time
            you fuck
                        your best friend’s mother
                                    you really really didn’t mean to.

The second time
            you fuck
                        your best friend’s mother
                                    you tell yourself
                                    it’ll never happen again— 

but the third time
            you fuck
                        your best friend’s mother
                                    you are willing to admit
                                    that maybe
                                    this is the formation of a habit.

You are nineteen
and she is raven-haired and has legs that go for days
            and she has given birth
            to your favorite person in the whole world.
It seems almost logical
that you two might come together— 

The fourth time, you begin to rationalize
            how this isn’t really hurting anyone.
            Her husband is gone 9 months out of the year
                        and you are so smitten
                                    and confident
                                    and nineteen
            that the fifth time
you push her up against the wall
and bury your face in her throat.
Under the ringing chime of your belt buckle,
                        she lets out a little sound of pleased surprise
and you think
you could have lived your whole life
and never heard that sound

but now,
the lack of it is going to ring in the voice
            of every twenty year old
                        who is afraid to ask for what she really wants from you
            or every twenty-one year old
                        who wants to have sex with the lights off
            or every twenty-two year old
                        who fakes an orgasm
            because the world has taught her such self-possession is unseemly— 

                        It’s not that you’re in love with her.
                        It’s just that you’ve been spoiled.

After the thirtieth time,
            you lie in her husband’s bed and realize
            that you would gladly let this ruin you
                        and
            that it very well might.

You put these hours with her
            behind a door
            so you do not come to your best friend stranger-lipped
            or as a liar.

When he asks you about women,
or tells you about love,
            you open the door
            and the only thing that comes out is some made-up name
            and her black hair
                        the same as his
            the way her mouth has the same cupid’s bow,
            how they smile the same,
how much you care about him
and how differently you care about her.

                        How she has given you this secret to keep
                        like you are an oyster
                                    and all she has ever wanted
                                                is a necklace.

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Melissa Newman-Evans has been the waitress and a regular reader at the Boston Poetry Slam since 2007, and has been designing chapbooks for individuals in the community for even longer. Currently, she provides graphic design for the Boston Poetry Slam, the Encyclopedia Show: Somerville, Bicycle Comics poetry books, and will be Art Director for the upcoming National Poetry Slam 2013 in Boston. She was a member of the 2012 Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge slam team, and has headlined poetry shows around the northeast. If you wanted a tonic and gin, she thinks you should have ordered it that way.