The Sudoku Master

The hotel lobby seemed the right place
To scan the news and flip the scandal sheets,
To pass the quiet hours in chaste
Waiting for the night. I never considered
its location between the pool
and women’s quarters.
When she suddenly appeared over me
Wrapped neck-to-toe in muumuu
With a thick towel turbaned on her head,
And plopped down next to me on the pillowed couch
A storm surge scent of warm,
freshly-bathed woman swept over me.
Ancient smells of damp hair, flushed pink
Flesh, clean, radiant skin, wholesome sweat,
And steaming, toweled nakedness,
Mother, sister, lover, desire
Stirred and something moved –
A crocodilian impulse --
A quickening homunculus --
Moved in near-forgotten nether zones
of reckless, scrotal heat.
“Now explain to me” she said,
“How you do this puzzle.”


The Pythagorean grid
Could not contain the thought
That somewhere in that terrycloth,
Was moist feral flesh. My lusting shoulder
Rose of its own accord and my mouth
Watered to tongue her neck as
I pulled my elbow back to my ribs
And my arm, an arc of resignation,
Rested in my lap. My unstilled
Fingers, dissatisfied, dithered
On my thigh as my hasty pencil
Clawed at her conundrum.
“Don’t go there.” I said to my hand,
“The woman trusts you like a brother.”


Satisfied with simple tricks of logic,
She tripped off to her room and
Evening passed to darkness.
My nostrils still reeked with intoxicating
Pungency and desire lingered like a broken promise.
“Self,” I said, “you’re too old for this.”
Not that self had much to say about it.
How long had it been since I knew
That scent and its strength?
Nineteen-ninety? Ninety-one? May?
June, New Orleans. Sweet.