Clara Bow’s Panties

He kept them for
40 years in
an antique
oak chest,
that his dead mother
had used for fine lace
handkerchiefs and
embroidered napkins. Clara
Bow’s yellow silk panties
graced the bottom.
Once or twice a month
he would take them out,
holding them
over his face,
inhaling and smelling deeply..
And memories of being
a movie extra, as
a kid, would come back
like a flood: :
when he was nine and looking up her dress
between her tanned and plump thighs,
the inspiration of his
first erection.

by Doug Draime