Memories

[lightedpalace]

I knew a girl
who was the most fascinating
boy you'll ever meet.
I stared hard,
hoping her nipples
would cease to seem so obscene
against her flat chest, visible
through a button-down pinstriped shirt.
Those full, firm nipples.
"You could hang a candy-cane
off one of those."
my girlfriend murmured.

The girl who'd make a gorgeous boy
told me (& anyone who'd listen)
how my lips are luscious; leering,
sneering at herself. I told her
she was a misbegotten elf
but she fought it, tooth & nail.
The truth failed
to yield an answer, yet again.
Truth not quite aligned
with our hidden rhyme.

Subverted fantasy,
we fear desire so we flee:
commit & run,
we must stay free!
Stay free...
stay golden.

I recall being slammed
against some stranger's garage door.
I remember Tyndall stone & stained glass;
lilacs & pink ink letters.
Precious blossoms growing
up between the cracks.
I remember a street corner slick
with rain; pavement gleaming,
street-lights streaming
paths across the water.

Did I love her ?
Is it love that keeps me coming
back to memories ?
Of the way she smelled,
the way you smell;
I can't smell him at all.
Still, there's something...
his back pressed against the wall.
Ah, but... Your fingers
trailing lazy lightning &
Her blade slicing our
names into dead-fall.
Just a tree to be
washed away
in next Spring's thaw.
Another casualty
of the one law;
that's all.

[Cate]

Your poem has a dream like quality to it, flipping from one memory to another, they seem interconnected but at the same time disjointed in the way dreams/memories often are.

You’re a Canadian girl – have you heard/seen/read Ivan Coyote? - an amazing story teller and wearer of pin stripped shirts. This is here nor there but that’s who I thought of when you said ‘The girl who'd make a gorgeous boy’