The Xerox repairman enters the school.
Students have all boarded buses away
from monotony. I linger in the doorway
of the copy room, thinking if the machine
is repaired soon, I will run tomorrow’s test.
He is thirty-fiveish, handsome, tattoos
on the back of his neck. He seems oblivious
of me, so I linger behind him, feel inferior
to his masculine aura. He rummages
through a green, metal toolbox, pulls out
something I can’t identify.
I shake off musing, continue to admire
a man half my age whose beefy glance
touches me with a lost look as he wipes inky
hands on a work cloth. He crouches again,
a sexual phantom easing fingers into
the metal belly, his touch crawling deep
within electronic flesh. Warm silence catches
sweat from his wrist. I could say things
before we both are so far apart in one place
fantasy colapses, but I don’t.
He scrambles tools away, cleans up his work area.
I clear my brain of self-condemnation
for wanting a stranger’s tenderness or even
a one-night scar and a savage morning.
The Xerox repairman nods and smiles
as he passes by me. I place a document
on the copier, press a botton. The machine
works flawlessly beyond doubt and possibilty.
