I slept on floors with the youth who was my first boyfriend,

first lover, first husband, young man whose back cramped

on mattresses but on floors was pain-free. 

I held him on so high a pedestal I believed whatever he told me,

in this case not only convincing but also correct:

after a few months of sleeping beside him,

mattresses did me in as well. 

It was more than five years before we moved up to a futon,

queen-sized and firm-padded. 

I left it behind when I drove off in my red Toyota Tercel,

bought from a woman who cried when she took our money. 

She called it Baby.  I renamed it Gaia

but kept her Pride sticker on the back windshield until seeing it,

a student slipped a handwritten note under the front wiper,

saying how nice it was to see those colors

on a faculty member’s car. 

Feeling guilty about the unintended deception,

I scraped the sticker off. 

I didn’t think I had the right, not then, not now. 

As much as I loved my two dear lesbian friends,

I never wanted anything more than to kiss them,

and even then only in dreams. 

It’s always been men I’ve desired and men whom I’ve slept with,

on floors and on single beds, doubles and queens. 

So far, no king-sized anything has yet come my way.