A Brief Interlude With Cathy

I catch your eye and lick my lips.
I wave and you pretend not to see.
I bat my eyelashes and you don’t respond.
I smack your face and you kick me in the balls.
Right in the balls.
You smash my balls with your boot.
I’m on the ground but happy
that I finally have your attention. 
You begin to walk away and I can’t stand
so I crawl after you, yelling your name.
You’re walking slowly and I can hear you laughing.
You can still feel in the tip of your toe
where you kicked.
It’s all warm and pulsating and you smile.
You see a friend and the two of you begin to talk.
I catch up and tug on your pants.
Wait, Cathy, I know this story. 
You’ve told it to me before.
I finish a sentence for you, still on the ground,
half rubbing, half playing with my balls.
You look down at me amused
and begin to change the story.
That’s not how it happened, I say,
 that’s not how you told me.
It’s a different story you say and I don’t know shit about anything.
Your friend has the common decency
to kneel down and ask if I need anything.
A Bloody Mary would be fine.
Hot?
I nod and she leaves us alone.
I had waited for us to be alone.
I thought of things I might do
if I could only summon the courage to ask.
I caress your calves and raise your pant leg
 to lick your ankles.
You’re not telling me to stop, but I sense I’m just another man on his hands and knees,
begging for a bone.
You enjoy this.  I can tell.
Then, I knew it would happen:
Your friend arrives with my drink.
I didn’t expect her so soon.
I wet my lips and you go into labor.  Right there.
I was surprised.
The ice made my Bloody Mary very cold
and I have to admit,
it was good to see you suffer.
The pain brings you to your knees
and your water breaks all over the sidewalk.
What can I do? I ask, reserved.
Fuck off you fuck, was your reply.  It stung.
You scream.  Scream.  An angry, evil, agonizing scream.
Cathy?
Maybe you didn’t hear.
I put an ice cube to your forehead.
You liked that. You almost smiled.
I thought you would ask me for anything then
but you didn’t
because you are a stubborn woman.
God please—  but the rest is choked by a sudden, more precise pain.
I didn’t know your feelings: 
Hospitals or natural child birth?
My balls began to swell.  Once, twice, three times their normal size and I was impressed.
I undid my pants to let them free.
And just who the fuck am I with my goddam pants down in public?
Officer, this woman is having a baby.
That’s not the point, he said. You’re coming with me.
What about her? What about Cathy?
She’ll be fine.
But—, I said,
and he cuffed a wrist to my scrotum.
Cathy, you held out your hand then
and I knew if I didn’t take it
I would never have it again.
Cathy, I screamed.
The officer stood on my back
for a photograph
and one of my testes burst open.
Cathy, I screamed, I’m here.  Right here.
And then I couldn’t speak.
The cop laughed.
The people walked by.
My vision blurred.
The midwife arrived
and calmly directed your contractions.
Time passed.
I couldn’t call because I was in prison.
I thought about you constantly
because my cell mate forced me to call him Cathy
when he fucked me.
That was difficult.
It was a difficult time for me.