The first touch was a sweet gesture,

a night approaching as shift set in,

and there I was to pick you up and

drop

you off.

 

We met before,

but this was classic ‘me,’

and I was the gentleman,

the scholar,

and the saint.

 

I did it to help,

but there we were just

a few weeks later

with you bent over the desk

in your spare room

with your roommates fast asleep.

 

The saint is the sinner

and the hero plays the villain too,

but neither of us will regret the memory,

or the company in the

badlands.

Age dances on your face

in the form of forgotten laughs

and remembered tears.

 

Your body still burns

the flames of youth,

sparked by desire unspeakable and

the dark unknowable, nestled deep in you.

 

The smoke sneaks out of you –

the smell of beautiful burning birch –

as the fire dances

forever

deep within your ghost-blue eyes.

The bed on milk crates

in the fake-windowed room,

with the rough ending of love.

 

Memories pierce and

pull

and turn the easy seas of

Saturdays

into the shy touch of first lovers.