"when you were twenty-three..."

when you asked me to tell you
all about "when you were twenty-three"
did you think that I would not remember
the way his kisses tasted or the rise of
the road through cornfields as we
flew home with wind-tangled hair and the
promise of ripe tomatoes we'd eat like apples

did you think I could forget the scent
of baby oil and iodine rising from
sun-hot skin, or the heady perfume of
night jasmine coming through the open
windows where threadbare curtains
ebbed and flowed like waves against
the threshold of my dreaming

did you wonder if I could still feel
the ache of his leaving and the
emptiness of not knowing if he would
ever return to keep his promises of
white lace and forever under a canopy
of stars that pulsed with magic

twenty-three was James Taylor and
Carly Simon stil together and singing
of Terra Nova and the thrill of
her smiling face. It was a restored barn
on the edge of nowhere and a copper
bathtub we filled with water from the
well and heated by wood fire, it was
air that pulsed with another tomorrow

twenty-three is as alive today as
it was when a lifeguard's sweatshirt
with frayed sleeves, hung long and loose
around my insecurities and I buried my
hopes in the arms of a man who would
leave me in September for another
coast, hoping I would not drown in the
that fathomless reservoir of heartache
he left behind only to return by Christmas
and find me gone