Author Information
1984 Remember
Rob Boyte
March 1984
(Edited Version)
Can you remember,
the other times we came together, to share our love, often forbidden by the bodies we kept in the world we lived?
Can you remember,
not too long ago, on the southern plantation when you would sneak from the big house in early evening to meet me by the shed? You were so frail and white in my strong Mandingo arms, and I loved the power as you loved being helpless.
Was it only lust for something different, forbidden, or was there a deeper love with us? You were of perfume and lace and I of tattered rags and sweat, but you would press your thin pink lips against my large brown mouth with passion. You seemed so small, hanging onto my broad brown shoulders with those delicate white fingers, nails digging into my flesh as our bodies exploded together and we were one for the moment. There was love in that carnal affair, though not deeply enmeshed as it is now.
Can you remember,
further back, when I was a sailor from the European coast and you an Asian girl sold to me by your kinsmen? A heathen by my church, unwelcome in my land, you were such a delight to a lonely sailor, tasting exotic though forbidden fruit so far from home. How you loved my curly brown hair so different than your own straight black strands, as you ran your fingers through it bathing me. Did you love me then, or just doing the things to serve your man as you were taught?
How I wanted you so and you wanted to please. Well versed in the arts of pleasing a man, we ebbed and flowed as the tide, to and fro, til the surf crashed below. Though you were just my servant, we shared of our lives, and hidden in structure and duty there was love for us then.
Can you remember,
a distant time when I was a soldier of Rome and you a Hebrew girl in the Eastern Empire? How we talked at the well and you saw through my armor, a lonely boy in a hostile land, and showed me some kindness. Though our love was forbidden by your laws and mine, we would slip to the groves and be with each other, not Roman nor Hebrew, but boy and girl in universal love.
You would quake to my touch, as I opened your robe and felt you warm body so pliant and smooth. My mouth and fingers explored you completely, as a soldier surveys new terrain, each hill and valley pressed and licked and felt.
Was it really love, or just passion of youth that brought us together against all restraint? There was love in that grove under those bushes, but young and untested by time.
Can you remember,
those many times our love prevailed when our different paths crossed and we knew each other despite the facades of color, religion, nation or position?
And, will you remember in days of future past, as we meet on distant planets with differences not yet seen, this love we now share? Forbidden by some in this time, though undiminished; strengthened by the passing of a million years, prepared to endure a million more.
