Detour
His name was Todo, Spanish for all.
He saw me tacking down the corner
of the dance floor, bought me
a coke with light ice.
He said I looked young but acted mature,
like Lolita. He laughed. I didn't get it.
In his car he asked what I liked to do most.
When I said read, he squinted, confused,
skated his fingertips across the brim
of my hat. I gave him my number,
and a kiss on the cheek.
The next morning, I curled the telephone
cord around my finger, told him I
was fifteen. He coughed. Told me he
was twenty-five. All I could see
was my mother at his age, lugging
my one-year old self around town.
I said it was nice to talk to him,
but I couldn't date him and he
understood.
Twenty-five. A car. A job. My fifteen year
old brain all abuzz. What a detour that
would have been. An accelerated course
in love. Or lust. Back seats and beer bottles.
Cigarettes and coffee. I see what could have
been, and wonder how much of myself
I would have lost along the way.
3 comments:
It seems to me like your thoughts are moving toward a picture of someone else you're thinking of at the end. Who is she?
I don't know who she is. Surely she is someone different than who I am now. I guess that was my whole idea behind the poem. Dating that guy would have changed me dramatically, in a way I can't fully understand or measure.
Yeah, but it seems to me you start working towards it before you back off. There's a darkness ahead that seems to me would be interesting. I think your Muse knows. ?
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