Duncan, Oklahoma

His fingers skip over piano keys,
his eyes close to take in the moment
or to imagine me more handsome.
He takes me to a dark restaurant
and I preoccupy my mind with
the notion that he is trying to hide me,
ashamed that he has made such an error.
I cannot enjoy the food or the conversation,
worried about returning to his house,
which he keeps too clean.
Why is it so clean?
Does he see me?
Does he know what I’m thinking?
The music he played seemed sad
when I thought about it later,
sitting in a car still scented with newness.
Am I messing this up? What is this?
The car is too clean and I don’t know
where to put my words.
He’s speaking with an accent of anticipation,
using phrases that clarify his disappointment
to me, even though I am not listening.
His eyes were closed as he played the piano.
Was he thinking about how much he wanted me?
Was he thinking about older men? Younger?
I don’t know how to be what he was expecting; I try.
I talk about my youth, my immaturity,
the words exposing the distance between us.
He’s thirty-six years old, twice my age.
We return to the sterile house, the gaps widening.
I stay, unclear why I have come here.
The night is uncomfortably quiet and cold,
I sleep in his house, in a guest room.
I drive three hours back to my own home in the morning,
back to a house that is never clean,
back to a life that isn’t filled with unspoken longing.
For weeks, the emails stop. I was not enough,
I didn’t know how to be enough,
did not understand what enough meant.
I regret being me when I arrived at his house,
convince myself that I have orchestrated a deceit.
He plays his piano at home alone, he closes his eyes
and thinks only about the music.

Notes

Written 1 October 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Duncan, Oklahoma” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)