East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser is currently the subject of a discrimination suit that stems from a long-term extramarital affair he was having with his research assistant. But things weren't always so bleak for the high-minded Bowser. During the affair, he would write the assistant, Corletta Hicks, romantic poetry that wonderfully mixes the lofty and mundane.
“Good morning flower,” Bowser wrote in one of the poems that was part of 200 page deposition. “Hope your day brings new hope, new meaning to those things so close to our hearts. Folks at Planning Board said hello.”
Another email goes, "Love is in the air. Breathe it in deeply for distribution throughout the body and soul. Enjoy the day. Be in by 10 or 10:15."
Bowser, 77, told attorneys that, “I thought I was being poetic, I was feeling romantic."
Bowser faces a tough reelection campaign while also dealing with mounting pressure to resign.
"Even the sea cannot produce the beauty of Ms. Hicks," Bowser wrote in one note. "If I were a fisherman I’d bait my line to hook you. You would be a prize catch, not as a trophy, but as someone for me to continue to love and adore."