river

it is that rare night which finds me
limber-smiled
brokentooth bold
distracted hands open to the sincere
wordbuzzed and calmhearted

encounters at the other end of friday
unspooling smalltalk and bon mots at strangers
at the bartop a gorgeous blonde in formfitting fabric
positions
her hand up for a hifive and i meet it with no
small grace
she chitterchatters
we muse mockingly on the bartender as another is tapping my
shoulder with a nervous joke i gratefully
consume with my first sip of beer when

my drink arrives i am not lingering with them but
returning to my table and other faces
her tattooed arms are young but somewhat masculine
wearing bakery years on her small rocknroll frame with
virginia hair pushed back and sunburned and

in her eyes maybe a cool river of forgiveness that isn't really hers
and
as if gathered on the shores of interlocked strangers
where the essences of decommissioned loves circle in the salted wind it
pours forth unhindered by the self-conscious airs i employ

and at times the bar becomes isolated in its noise
and we find pockets in it which are
like blooms
or intimate theaters and

i find that i am less conversing with her than
with other lost women
i wonder if i always do that

i am speaking with a distant love
with an envelope of braided hair and photographs
touching the freckled cream of her hip when i am touching her hip when
i am touching her soft
echoes of movement that duplicate and expand in response
to the noise and airconditioning

we steal the food off of somebody's abandoned plate
conspire and tease
drunk and pleasant
bewitched and summoned by these semi-transparent yearnings

in aforementioned virginia hair which smells of cornstalk and handrolled
cigarettes yet
other women manifest and fold their fingers and unfold and
repair me
medicinal ghosts of this burial ground where we
all connect if only to add commentary to our roadmaps made
precious by lost time

she stays with me too long i surmise
i leave her with the newly materialized guy she doesn't want

the one she was supposed to know