Chris Greenhalgh
The Big No-No
from Stealing the Mona Lisa
The erotic tension is almost palpable
as they stand jiggling brandy loin-high
in warm circles: the corpulent older man
with the bonhomie of a department-store Santa,
his right arm draped round a young man’s shoulders,
his left arm circling a younger woman’s waist.
His glasses, at an oblique angle to the camera,
have whited-out, while the pupils of the other two
are pink as rabbits’ eyes from the flash
and if I tell you that the older man
happens to be my boss, the girl his mistress,
the other me, and that several times
her labia have given me less trouble
than a milk-carton, then perhaps you will
understand why I’m no longer employed
and why I finger this photograph with
three parts nostalgia, one part regret.
Page(s) 77-78
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