Wants and Needs
I.
I wanted someone
whose slender fingers
would slowly rub
the day from my shoulders,
then turn me over
for a kiss.
Then I wanted someone
to let me return the favor.
I wanted someone
to say it was his turn
to cook dinner
(or order pizza).
But that’s not what he wanted.
II.
He wanted to hold my hand
at the theater,
in a restaurant,
on a street,
the warm of his fingers
tangled with mine,
the length of our arms
pressed close.
He wanted to watch television
with his arms around me,
from the floor of our living room,
a pillow under our heads,
a blanket over our torsos.
He wanted a kiss,
soft and lasting,
hearing the crisp sound,
then the forced breathlessness
of parting.
He wanted us to fall asleep,
bodies together,
legs intertwined,
sheets thrown away,
wind entering the window.
But that’s not what I wanted.
Joe Carrithers first started writing poetry when he was in junior high school in Mississippi. He was not especially talented at that age but did get one of his poems published in the school’s mimeographed “newspaper,” and thus began a lifetime of frustration. When he and his husband aren’t hiking or watching movies, he keeps himself busy teaching college writing, critical thinking, and literature classes at a community college in Southern California.
