Alexis

Alexis Kornfeld
was my make believe
girlfriend
when I was
a teenager in love
and living
in the coney island
low income
housing projects

Alexis was a blond haired
blue eyed beauty
who lived in the building
down the block on
seaview avenue and
she made the whole
neighborhood look good

Guys from
other neighborhoods
would pull up
in their fancy
shiny new cars
(the ones with
all the chrome
and fancy fins)
and they would cruise
the boulevard
trying to pick up
the easy fun loving
girls from the projects
for a saturday night
of finger fucking fun

It was easy pickings
for these chicken hawks
who had only to flash
a little cash
and the promise
of a good time
and a night out
on the town
for the girls
in the angora sweaters
and skin tight
pedal pushers
to freshen up their
ruby red lipsticks
and perfumed
powders
before jumping
into the plush
leather seats of these
rolling casonavas
with their
slicked back hair
and oily hairy chests
festooned with
glittering gold
crosses
and muscle T shirts
and tattoos to cover
some real scars
earned in
gangland rumbles
that would provide the
fodder for
broadway musicals
for the uptown
fancy dandies
who liked to fantasize
about the romantic
escapades of the
lower classes
this being the
uptight fifties
when sex was still
officially taboo but
on the minds of
every red blooded
American boy and gal
all the same
fueled by hot
rock and roll music
and cheap booze
thunderbird wine
speedballs
designed to get
the girls drunk fast
to prepare them for the
quick feels
wet hickies and hot
back seat sex
that made the
teen jive jumpin
back seat humpin
world of teenage
rebel rousers seem
dangerous and intoxicating

And Alexis Kornfeld
was the queen of
seaview boulevard
all the boys wanted her
(me included!
I knew that
I  had about as much chance
of hooking up with the likes of her
as I was likely to have
angels fly out of my ass!)
I died a little inside
every time
Alexis would
jump in beside
one of these slick
muscle bound
Italian boys from
bay 50th street

So I invented a story
that Alexis and I were
actually dating
and to prove it
I wrote pathetic
love letters to myself
and pretended
that they came from her

I flashed the letters
all over the neighborhood
and my friends
would swoon over the
perfume drenched
ersatz missives
jealous and envious
while being
jaundiced and skeptical
at the same time.
they all believed
because they
wanted to believe
that one of their own
actually had a chance
with the likes of her
so for a while there
I was riding high
on my own supply
until the day of reckoning
inevitably came

That was the day that
Alexis ran off and married
one of her many suitors
and made her move
to parts unknown
(most likely
Staten Island or
New Jersey).

I was heartbroken
but what could I do
after all
she wasn’t really my girl friend
and I sincerely doubt
that she ever even knew

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2012