![\"1551703_10100933439551763_8246502853244857152_n\"](\"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/1551703_10100933439551763_8246502853244857152_n.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nby Louis Gallo<\/p>\n
I assume I’m finally getting somewhere
\nhere at massive Midwest U where I’m grinding
\ntoward a grad degree and teaching comp
\nwhich no one can really teach anyway or learn \u2013
\neither you’ve got it or you don’t \u2013 and I’m taking
\nthis useless class in Victorian Lit where right beside me
\nup front sits Anastasia, doing the same thing I’m doing,
\ntrying to get somewhere, and she is freaking gorgeous
\nin an old-fashioned Debbie Reynolds way, modest, reserved, shy,
\nsweet, all those ancient virtues, and still the prettiest girl
\nin the entire Midwest (that I’ve seen anyway) but I spot
\nthe wedding ring right off and that’s a bummer
\nbut I’ve learned in my meager twenty-four years
\nthat everyone is hungry, all the time, everyone craves,
\neveryone breaks the rules because rules disfigure the spirit,
\nso of course I flirt with her, and I do all the talking
\nin class (so much so that the lisping, rotund professor
\ntakes me aside one day and in effect tells me to shut up)
\nand as we’re walking back to our cubicles she says
\nshe’s impressed with my mind, imagine a beautiful woman
\ntelling you that, it’s double-edged, I’d prefer body,
\nbut mind’s ok though I have never thought much of mine
\nbecause I can’t come close to grasping math
\nof any kind and that’s where the real geniuses tread,
\nI even had to memorize the text book in calculus at Tulane
\nto pass the course . . . well, she is the one with mind, I swear,
\nand that makes it all the better, and I sometimes think
\nI must be afflicted with that Stendhal syndrome: beauty
\ninducing tremors, full body sweats, vertigo, panic . . .
\nbecause I feel them all when I see her, and we’re reading
\nin class Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came and it
\nstuns me as well, the emaciated horse, the absurd journey,
\nChilde tooting his paltry horn when he finally reaches the squat
\ndark tower, the desolation, the horror and futility,
\nand the professor tells us it’s an affirmative piece of work
\nand I shudder at his ignorance, but that’s all beside the point
\nbecause all the while I’m dreaming of Anastasia without clothes
\nand we go out for coffee a lot at the student union
\nand she tells me the sad story of her marriage to a guy
\nwho five years before was injured in a trucking accident
\nthat paralyzed him from the waist down and when I ask
\nif that means what I think it means she starts to cry and nods
\nand I see that this poor women is dreadfully unhappy
\nand wonder how she can always pull off the cheerful routine
\nwhich she does immaculately because with me I can’t hide it,
\nit erodes my face and spirit, it consumes me and there’s no way
\nto disguise it and I see no reason to . . .
\nso of course we start meeting at night
\nsometimes in dark empty classrooms on the third floor
\nof Arts & Sciences, sometimes in my car on the edge
\nof lonely mud roads and sometimes in the university’s
\ngreenhouse at night when no one is around, its glass walls
\nawash with condensation, the sleepy plants effusing chlorophyll,
\nand believe me she is into it and always intense and I’m confused
\nbecause there must be some immorality going on here
\nand I wonder who’s the guiltier, so I just assume me
\nsince I’m always guilty, which doesn’t ever stop me
\nbecause I can’t resist, I have no self-control, I’m low, man, low . . .
\nconfusing me most is that Anastasia is so decent, ethical,
\nmoral, god-fearing, good, reliable, punctual, faithful, etc.,
\na succulent, sexy Betty Crocker, none of which tallies
\nwith what we do in the greenhouse or the back seats of cars
\nor those empty classrooms . . . and I wonder too about
\nthe paralyzed husband, what a lousy fucking break (literally),
\nand if Einstein asks right now \u201cIs the universe friendly?\u201d
\nI\u2019ll kick him in his e=mc2 ass, friendly? to deprive a young man
\nof his splendid hormonal woman for a despoiler like me?
\nand oh yeah that lispy professor starts to call on me in class
\nbecause no one wants to discuss Childe Roland and I refuse
\nto say another word, and no one says another word, and the class
\ndies and he doesn\u2019t get tenure and winds up selling insurance . . .
\nand in the end when I\u2019m about to move back to the Deep South
\nand Anastasia and I must part, it\u2019s not so smooth and she too
\ndecides never to speak another word to me, and I don\u2019t get it,
\nnobody\u2019s talking to anybody, it\u2019s silent as outer space . . .
\nand before that she once asked me why I didn\u2019t call her Ana
\nwhich is what everybody calls me, and I say that I will never
\ncall you Ana, only Anastasia, because you\u2019re the lost Romanov,
\nthe empire, the Faberge eggs, the heir \u2013 and just pray
\nanother Lenin doesn\u2019t come along or something worse than Lenin.
\nBut then, that’s already happened.<\/p>\n
###<\/p>\n
Louis Gallo\u2019s work has appeared or will shortly appear in Southern Literary Review, FictionFix, Glimmer Train, Hollins Critic, Rattle, Southern Quarterly, Litro, NewOrleans Review, Xavier Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Missouri Review,Mississippi Review, Texas Review, Baltimore Review, Pennsylvania LiteraryJournal, The Ledge, storySouth, \u00a0HoustonLiterary Review, Tampa Review, Raving Dove, The Journal<\/em> (Ohio), Greensboro Review<\/em>,and many others. \u00a0Chapbooks include The Truth Change, The Abominationof Fascination, Status Updates and The Ten Most Important Questions<\/em>. He is the founding editor of the now defunct journals, The Barataria Review and Books: \u00a0A New Orleans Review<\/em>. \u00a0He teaches at Radford University in Radford, Virginia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Louis Gallo\u2019s work has appeared or will shortly appear in Southern Literary Review, FictionFix, Glimmer Train, Hollins Critic, Rattle, Southern Quarterly, Litro, NewOrleans Review, Xavier Review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poem"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t