Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Long Gone

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.

No comments: