Okay, so here's where I reach the peak of squirm. We still have four poems to go in this first part of the...sigh, Jane saga, but I came to my senses and never gave them to her. This one though, this one is the one I regret giving her. It would be a fine poem to save and present later in a relationship, but...
The only jury I ever sat on was for an indecent exposure case. A delivery driver was dropping off paper at a local company, and thought he was getting powerful signals from the cute receptionist. She had, for instance, shown him the storage closet and stretched a bit from her morning of sitting at the phone, and he took that as the universal bow-bow-chika of a porn scene, apparently. In any case, when she turn around at her desk to sign the invoice, there he was with his pants down around his thighs. She objected, he fled and by the time he had returned the truck that day, he was fired.
He did not contest the facts, and so the case was whether his intent met that of the indecent exposure law. He took the stand, and had the following exchange with the prosecutor:
PROSECUTOR: You had delivered paper to that company several times before?
ACCUSED: Yes, Sir.
PROSECUTOR: And you had seen the receptionist at least some of the previous times?
ACCUSED: Yes, Sir.
PROSECUTOR: And you found her attractive?
ACCUSED: Yes, Sir.
PROSECUTOR: Did you ever ask her out on a date?
ACCUSED: No, Sir.
And we in the jury were like, "You know, you might just think about that before you pull your pants down next time." We deliberated a whole fifteen minutes trying to find any way to interpret the intent of the law in his favor, but we found him guilty.
And so it goes with Little Mertseger: could I not have just asked Jane out again before writing:
In this last poem I’d like to say thank you
For the hours we’ve spent this past week talking,
For caring when I felt depressed and blue,
For telling me so much after walking
Back from the movie that cold Friday night.
Apparently, I'd share my sadness of being a lonely guy, and she'd shared her sadness over of being away from home and the crunch of the studies at Cal. And we had said some words of encouragement to each other.
Because, believe it or not, I do care
That you can see the joy and delight
That line should read more towards "I do care/whether or not you can see..." but the usual squeezing into ten syllables squeezed out some sense.
That permeates this world. I’d like to share
The secret of the happiness I feel
[DALEK VOICE]: CLICHE ALERT! CLICHE ALERT!
Even in the deepest pit of depression:
Ugh: I usually at least try to avoid them.
It is the knowledge that no one can steal
From me such moments of confirmation
That there are people who care like you do,
And so I say thank you and I love you.
And so that's it. My great squirmy shame: the first time I told any woman that I loved them was in a sonnet after a single, perfectly chaste, kinda, sorta, if-you-squint-the-right-way date.
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