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Elizabeth Zelvin

twelve years later, how funny running into you
i remember you in glasses and a bowtie
before mad avenue bought space
in the revolution

you are conscientiously updated
you have let your hair grow longer
in that slick packaged heaven
where good admen go
you will play electric harp

you have remembered every moment
all this time
and remind me of it over steak
which you have paid for
your revolution balks at going dutch
mine will be vegetarian by next week
but just this once i'll buy your buying me
my steak

i'm curious to remember how it feels

i took my diaphragm everywhere in those days
the only part i remember is when you said
why don’t we go ahead, do what we’ve both been thinking
but i hadn’t, honestly, or i would never
have put my flannel nightgown on
sorry, i don’t remember
anything that happened after that
it was all so long ago
and meant so little

twelve years ago, before the revolution
it was usually too much trouble to say no
especially when the man had bought you
steak

you are curious to remember how it feels
but i have chewed and sat with downcast eyes
letting you tell some patent Barbie me
that i'm more womanly (sic) than your ex-wife
and feel i've paid enough
thanks for the steak, good seeing you again
i mouth, let's get together soon
i do not say, there’s been a revolution
and there have been too many one night stands

Elizabeth Zelvin is a writer living in New York who has poems appearing in Womanspirit and 13th Moon. She has recently completed a book about an alternative marriage, and among her other interests are "singing and song-writing, teaching creative movement, and trying to understand the synthesis of anarchism and feminism."