The Number You Have Dialed

Cleaning out the attic, I find in the pocket of
an old, moth eaten jacket a little Black Book.
Within its yellowed page are the names,
numbers, addresses of women long forgotten.
Fog, Snow, Rain, and so on, are written beside
each one like youthful cryptograms. Who was Ice?
Doesn’t sound very nice. Sun sounds like fun.
Hail? I dated Hail? Must have been hell.
Sleet! How and where did I meet Sleet? “I am
dating Sleet. What a treat. I’ll introduce you to
her sister Slush. Nice stuff.” Wind, Drought,
Thunder, every kind of weather, got to make
you wonder. Who said women are all the same?
There’s enough mood swings here to drive a
man insane. Breeze, Freeze – womanizing can
be demoralizing, bring a guy to his knees. Must
explain some things. Mist, Hurricane, Hurricane?
—you’d think I could put an encounter to that name.
Got to wonder what their notations about me were
and if they were all the same – Lame.
The fun of being young. More like misery seeks
company, desperately. Sun. Must have been blonde.
Kind of makes your breath catch and your heart
pound. Should I call that one? What would she say?
“Lame? You again?”