Live and in Living Color: A Personal Ad

by Anna Limontas-Salisbury

Love is about imagination
So, I got on the number 1 train headed uptown
And announced to no one and everyone

That I was available
I sashayed down the center of the car
Shaking and shimmering
Slithering down the center pole
A slinking salamander
And shouted above the conductor’s announcement:

Look here, now
Look here
Don’t let this patch of grey
Between these braids run you off
It’s a testimony to the fact
That I have lived and loved
Something fierce

That I know how to lick a man or woman
Clean to the marrow
And I know how to be
On the receiving end of the licking

I haven’t forgotten love
What it’s like to be loved
And how to give some love

Which one of you be needing
Some love, some new love?
Now before you jump on this here opportunity
Let me warn you
I’m not cleaning your drawers
Or watching your other woman’s babies

But for a small space of time
Usually somewhere around
When the wind on 155th and St. Nick gets something fierce
Just before Thanksgiving and not quite after Easter
Depending on when the groundhog sees his shadow and all
I am here to tell you, that I’m willing and able
To not be your maybe, but your baby

Prime loving right here!
If you ain’t tak’in, you be mistak’in