By Elgin Tolliver /
I came to in a strange hotel, fresh off a tryst with
Madame de Pompadour.
King Louis didn’t like it, but the gods
smoothed it over with Rita Hayworth.
Then it clicked I liked Rita even more.
Louis got de Pompadour, after all.
Rita won me over with
joie de vivre.
We needed money for a villa near
Hadrian’s hangout.
We opened a bookstore, curated manuscripts,
a coveted codex.
Women trusted my judgement RE
sexual passages.
Carte blanche from my heroics with
Cleopatra.
I’d nearly died pulling her out of a great fire.
She hired a PR firm to get the word out, but
dudes came to resent my fortune and fame.
Started a whispering campaign I’d
conspired with Hitler.
Rita decamped with Mastroianni.
Meanwhile, I caught syphilis from a woman who’d
caught it from Maupassant.
I returned to the strange hotel
offered libations
and went to the canteen for biscuits and gravy.
