PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Firday Night, August sixth, nineteen seventy-six:

you had been staying with your sister and her small son

while her husband worked nights at the plant, an imposition

(to be less than a full week) caused by scheduling errors.

You had invited me to spend part of this night with you, and

(despite parental objection, with much melodramatic expression),

we planned to drive, the next day, two hours northeastward to the

campus (where I would be compelled to spend almost

eleven weeks apart from you, beginning September ninth).

Before dusk had even begun, you had kicked your shoes off on the    

front porch of your sister's house.  We ate home-made tacos and

watched televised gameshows until about ten p.m., when she and

your nephew retired to sleep for the night.  (Your sister and

her family lived at the corner of G--- Road and G--- Avenue, in the

section of our township called, informally, TownView, in one of the

nicer, ranchstyle homes of this area, which my parents--- 

after learning that my best friend sometimes stayed there---

despised and castigated according to the prejudice that comforted them.)

You suggested we step back into the dining room.  You

unbuttoned your shirt, leaving it to hang open, as we returned to the

now cleared table to play cards for a while.  Immediately after we

sat down, across from each other, I felt, on my kneecaps, the

warmth and very light weight of your feet---sheathed in the

softness of midnight blue crew socks; which were normally not

quite entirely concealed by the frayed and tattered cuffs of your

baggy blue jeans.  You knew that the local Shock Theater began at

midnight; and, since we had not been able to go to the drive-in

theater, this one Friday night only (and we both realized that the

supply of our weekend nights would soon expire as September ninth

drew ominously near); so, at eleven forty-five we adjourned to the

television room, and you said, laughingly, "I thought my feet were on the

table legs," but your coy smile suggested that I should not

believe that.  I say in one corner of the luxuriously plush sofa, and

you sprawled out with your head at the opposite end, such that 

your feet now occupied my lap.  I inhaled, deeply, the

pheremone-laden scent of your socks.  Only a few minutes into the

film, you seemed to fall asleep; and I took this opportunity to

draw one fingertip, repeatedly and relentlessly, across your soles,

sheathed in that dark fabric.  I traced all the alphabet's letters, the

cardinal numbers, and all the plane figures I could remember from

tenth grade geometry.  I wished I had known about a hundred of the

digits that follow the point that follow the three in Pi, but would have

settled even for five, to trace on those soles enclosed in midnight

blue softness.  I noticed little of the Shock Theature feature; I cannot,

now, even recall the title, or any of the story.  My attention was

fixed, then (and now, as I tell this) on your socks, your soft, warm,

fragrant and flavorful midnight blue socks.

J-Called