Frosted night bus shelter
When I was 10 years younger
(Or more).
You were in your layers:
Band shirt flannel corduroy
(As always)
And you rubbed me warm
Through the hole in my jeans
While we considered what more our markers could say across the small turf of our wind-block.
All of this was romance then;
Long before dramatic teen-aged heartbreak,
Years before the real world settled upon us and into our pores
Like a fine weighty dust.
After the bus pulled away with you I
Lit my cigarette in the safety of the shelter
Popped my collar and stepped into the cold.
Around the corner
Snow under foot and hormones cluttering my inner narrative
I rubbed cinnamon gum on my fingers
To hide the smell of tobacco.
