30 July 2004
improbable romance 9
out of the snow blond evening I sense her bootfall approach in the hut playing poker for matchsticks drinking gin cocoa gin tips of her fingers on the back of my neck laughing till I lose three hands in a row drop my cards I’m out she wanders I wander the door to the bunks in a dark where she kisses me honey alive on her lips and on fire
through layers of clothes she buffs me her hand in my jeans long hair in my mouth murmuring daytime or nighttime and stars which are suns I’m sixteen and she is the gates of the dawn
on the first day my last term of school I turn up the playground where she of my dreams lines up with the second years just turned thirteen her musk radiates uniform smoke’s in my eyes I thought she was my age or older and what will I do
go to her grandmother’s where she lives far from a home that she says that she left for me and in her locked room with me sits on her bed in a white bikini and brushes her hair I hunger and itch and wonder what I will do
but she asks me to explain The Wind in the Willows and how long division and I’m hugely relieved and helpful to do so
and though we wander to parties bands whistle the winds swim in the summer for weeks now we know it’s all over before it
begins