August 1976 – Her name is no one’s business

Posted on June 5, 2003 in Adolescence Book of Days Poems Sorrow & Regret

Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.

Today’s topic: Write about small regrets.

Colton, California

….and avoid the near occasion of sin.

Eyes right

The charcoal car door, faintly rippled.

Her white hands under the spaced street lamps.

The lawn screaming bungalow at the end of the sidewalk.

Two pillars holding up the roof that

holds up the sky before it all collapses

on a serotonin-starved August night

when the Galaxies out of Thailand pounced the tarmac

not five miles away.

They say that Mormons and Catholics live to breed.

So aside from the catch of the blue book with the golden hornblower

the two of us should have been naturals in the flesh.

My eyes were focused down a line of eucalyptus trees

and she wanted a baby blue uniform so she could ride the Galaxies.

Eyes left.

Another bungalow, leering, across the street.

I disappoint. I do not lean for the kiss.

“Joel, we should just be friends,” she sighs.

She pats my hand and goes in the house.

I drive off, pretending that it doesn’t matter

pretending that it does

pretending that a moment has put a period down

knowing and denying that it’s only a comma.

Eyes ahead.
The sky blue hood of the squareback.

I start my car and begin my journey

out of the land of the splitting roads,

where the cargo jets pounce the tarmac

and no one checks the phone book when we come home

to find out what happened after we left.

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Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: You are standing outside a closed door.