In the Closet with Larry Bell

I designed him the Italian collar, made the shirt
of finest pale pink broadcloth, Santa Fe stuff
he’d asked me to alter a jacket and
we chatted as I followed him to his huge walk-in closet
(he'd traded a sculpture for the sprawling house)
my eyes stuck on his one hundred pairs of shoes
lined up on tilted racks; I thought of my son’s best shoes,
best pants, how we got by on so little. I imagined him later having
excesses too, but as Larry tried the jacket on,
and I smoothed down the lapels, facing him now, only noticing
as he slipped both his hands over my wrists, how sensual
it was to smooth his probably cashmere lapels over his
very perfect chest, and just as the sensation of slight swoon hit the top
of my head and bottoms of my feet, and I looked up to meet his quiet gaze
(knowing it was a Hollywood moment) I turned and exited, crossed his superbly
sumptuous adobe bedroom as if no gaze had occurred—I wasn’t having it!
I loved not being ravaged or assaulted. I was housemaid
to the Bells, tailor and dressmaker to a select Taos clientele, lived adjacent to the
Bells on their property. But I was done with impossible men—he was married, I their
part-time maid. I knew the role of maid and master was nothing I could change. His
wife ensconced in her affair didn’t matter to me. I could say no to a gentleman,
though if I were allowed, in heaven, to kiss, well, more than kiss,
three men I wasn’t allowed on earth, Larry Bell would be number one;
Dr, Jack, number two; and that adorable math prof on his Harley, three, oh three, like three wishes—I’d love them in a New York minute, given the proper , next-life circumstance.