It seems fitting

To finally put in writing

What happened when

Joanna and I started dating

I met Bridgit for the first time this morning in Hillcrest

And I wanted to find out if

She was who I suspected she might be

After responding to her Reader ad

It turns out that

She is indeed the same Bridgit

Whom I had heard about

More than once from Joanna

Bridgit has been dating

Joanna's housemate Rick,

And Joanna would mention her

Occasionally while we were dating

Rick doesn't know yet that Bridgit

Has an ad in The Reader

So I won't tell Joanna yet

About my new friend

I had just put the finishing touches on Monkey Sea,

Whose events had transpired during the past two days,

And had brought a copy to share with Bridgit --

She asked if she could keep it and I agreed

Bridgit and I got to talking about coincidences

And I told her about what had happened

When I first started dating Joanna,

So here goes...

Back when Joanna and I began dating,

At the beginning of November,

Our first four official dates

Were infiltrated by my former flame Carolyn's presence

On our first date we had a nice dinner

At "The Elephant Bar"

And then went to see Powder,

Which we both enjoyed thoroughly

I had successfully put Carolyn out of my thoughts

Until the middle of the movie

When Powder, who had special powers,

Charged up his new girlfriend by touching fingertips with her

I had to think of Carolyn

Because the only other time I had seen anything like this was

When she and I were first dating

And we were touching fingertips sitting on my couch

Carolyn surprised me by saying that

She was getting really turned on sexually

Just from our touching in that way

And hadn't been that turned on in a long time

On Joanna's and my second date

We rented Nell and watched it at her place,

Rick coming in and joining us

From time to time during the film

During the credits

Two names got my attention --

Michael Shapiro and

Mike Smallwood

Carolyn's second husband was

Les Shapiro

And her first was

Larry Smallwood

On our third date

We were sitting in Joanna's car

Saying goodnight and talking for quite a while,

As we were liable to do

I had avoided bringing up Carolyn

But during the course of this conversation

The subject came up,

So I reopened the still-fresh wounds a bit

Joanna confessed that she too was in therapy

And on an antidepressant

Because of having her heart broken,

Simultaneously with me

The fellow who had messed her up

Was named Larry and had two daughters

Whom Joanna missed --

This sounded like someone I had met

Joanna asked me what his last name was

And when I told her "Sherman"

She freaked out --

It was the same person!

I went on to tell Joanna that

I had met Larry on a hike

Just after I had started dating Carolyn

And that Carolyn had once been involved with Larry

Joanna related that

At a seder earlier in the year

That she attended with Larry

She had met Carolyn

During my relationship with Carolyn

Larry was calling her,

And from the description

It sounded like he wanted more than friendship

Larry had been telling Carolyn that

He had a girlfriend

Who didn't mind him meeting other women,

And more than once he suggested us double dating

I would have agreed to the double dates

Except that I didn't trust Larry's motives;

But wouldn't that have been something --

Carolyn and I would have been doubling with Larry and Joanna!

On our fourth date,

Joanna and I were watching TV with my friend Joe

When she asked me out of the blue

If I knew a guy named Bill Metz

I said the name didn't ring a bell

But then I realized that it certainly did --

Carolyn had a friend named Bill Metz

Whom she had shown my fractals to

Bill had been very enthusiastic

And felt I should market my art --

He recommended getting in touch with

Friends of his who had a gallery in Solana Beach

Joanna was shocked at this further coincidence,

As she and Bill had been good friends for many years --

She then recalled having met Carolyn through Bill five years before

And that Bill and Carolyn had dated briefly back then

So, what was going on here with Carolyn?

For a while it seemed like every time Joanna and I dated

Carolyn would join us, in spirit,

As if to keep me from getting too close to Joanna...

There were dreams, too, back then

Where Carolyn came to me,

In some quite lovingly --

Maybe she was still reaching out to me in the only way left open

Well, now that Joanna and I

Are no longer seeing each other,

And I'm meeting new women,

It seems that we're still connected