David Cassidy Then by Dennis Cooper

David Cassidy Then

David Cassidy picks me on The Dating Game.

I walk around the partition

and there he is. A quick kiss,

then Jim Lange gives us the good news.

“David, we’ll be flying you and your date

to . . . Rio de Janeiro! You’ll be

staying at the luxurious Rio Hilton

and attend a party in your honor!”

At the Hilton we knock the chaperone

out with a lamp, then we jive

around, smoke a little Colombian.

David says something to let me

know he’s willing, and I get

to chew his clothes off.

He dances Swan Lake naked

and I sprawl out on the bed.

He saunters over scolding me in French,

and covers my face with his modest rear.

He gives me a few minutes

then he’s up, blow-drying the drool

from his legs. He slips on a white jumpsuit,

runs a thumb across his teeth, and

turns to where I sit, still dreamy on the bed.

“Come on,” he says, full of breath.

Never so proud, I bring my hands up,

rub his stink into my face like a lotion.

I will wear it to the party!

As the lobby doors open

reporters start the sea of lights.

The cameras take us kissing, dancing.

They angle to get David’s sheathed body.

Girls watch his ass like a television screen

of men stepping onto the moon.

Little do they know what really lies there,

that this is no tan. “This is David,”

I say, smelling my face like a flower,

and pull him close, stoned out of my gourd.