Midriff

When I saw her midriff, it was just a flash.

She had a flat stomach, so flat it made her innie almost an outie.

But it was the flash of the small diamond stud that gave me pause.

I took a breath and remembered the funny waitress in Minneapolis who I fell in love with when the office went out for drinks.

She had a navel piercing that we talked about and I gazed at.

Then I was funny and then sloppy. And then not funny.

I paid the $300 bar tab and came back the next day to apologize and ask her out.

I smelled like hangover and desperation.

Everyone at the office looked at me sadly for a few days.

I was lost and thought I knew who I was.

Now, 35 years later, I’m looking at a 40 year-old’s midriff thinking about the woman I wanted to fuck way back when and the loser inside who really wanted to connect.