The Single Lady's Blues

(an excerpt from "The Happy Blues", an unfinished/un-started work of Jamie Ogles.)

Would you be a doll? Would you do me a
small
favor, see, I don't want
your flavor,
I want your arm,
see? The shoulder and elbow, no harm
done unless your fingers go numb with the weight of my head
on your bicep, the dreaded
tingle that bites around the nerves;
the single favor I ask won't hurt--
I'm an unskilled tease and a dreadful flirt,
and I want no funny business, mister;
I want the shoe without the blister,
the cake without a fork,
the wine with an inpenetrable cork--wait,
no, I like wine.
Nevermind
then, I'll just take
the arm for sanity's sake,
where I'll sleep and dream of shoes and cake
and wine while you
choose how to intertwine your fingers in mine,
and please,
take your time.