Kissing Booth

If my ex-fiancé did not volunteer
To run the kissing booth
I might not need to use the “ex-“
I might have one more tooth

Before all this, we had loved fall fairs
I mean real love, as in Cupid
We ate and spent like lovers do
We wore our  “I’m with Stupid”s

Behind my back she signed a sheet
That volunteered her kiss
My love for sale, my girl for rent
My vivisectioned bliss

The asking price—one ninety-five
Two even, with state tax
I read this from a flyer posted
To a telephone pole with tacks

The morning of, I stayed in bed
My hate a thick, black fog
My future wife was passing spit
With any solvent dog

Such money could buy a meal-deal lunch
A string of wholesome bowling!
But no, this money was buying my girl
Her lips all chapped and swollen

Oh, the kisses I envisioned!
The cash-bulge in her smock!
Fast Cash could get them twenty for
Each grunt that worked the docks

She came home late that very night
Two dollars was her fee!
She wept and tried to talk to me
I stared at the TV

“Listen to me,” she pleaded
Pouting her traitorous lips
“I really need your comfort now”
And sadly bumped her hips

What I heard then quite changed my life
My jealousy undone
I laughed and cried and laughed again
She hadn’t sold a one.