I Spy

In the darkness, he rises like a moonlit shadow.

He imagines himself a king.

He tells himself this is what a man is,

this is what a man does. He teaches, but not this.

The pills make the woman his subject, his concubine.

She offers no resistance.

Words begin to form in fragments but drift away.

She forgets how to speak.

She cannot move.

When we played I Spy, I would be him.

I assumed my dark skinned playmate

(whose ancestors came from Africa on slave ships)

would take the role.

But he insisted on playing Robert Culp’s part.

I would be the funny sidekick; he would be the debonair spy.

Watching TV, looking at the pictures in Playboy magazine,

we learned how to become dinosaurs

but not men.