PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Under most circumstances, you would not
have heeded her request, sent in a note,
to meet her today, Saturday, at noon,
at her home, at the back fence that adjoins
the high bank of the ancient creek.  What she
had asked defied the social structure of
your high school and most high schools.  Girls like her
do not send notes to, or ask to meet, boys
like you.  Against your few friends' judgment and
your past experience, you dared to take
a chance.  Clad in a white shirt (button down,
short sleeves), blue jeans, and red sneakers you walked
the half mile or so to her family's home,
and waited at the designated spot.
No:  girls like her to not notice, or speak
to, boys like you---excluded always from
such girls' circles of friends, the "popular,"
(they deem each other, and it must be so,
in their perceptions that are socially
established and entirely dominant).
Just as you are about to bolt, she steps
outside.  For this, she has put on a blue
polo shirt with a plaid skirt (short hemmed) and
green, opaque tights.  Conspicuously, she
has left her shoes behind (the sunlit grass
is dry enough; she does not need them now).
With statuesque poise, she approaches you,
and smiles.  Afraid your knees might buckle now,
you lean against the fence.  She swings the gate
open, and steps around, closer to you
than she, or anyone like her, has been.
"Thank you for coming," she says, shyly, but
you sense she really means that.  "I do not
"quite know the right way to say this to you---"
continuing, she blushes, "but I want
"to get to know you better.  I have read
"some of your poems" (some pages you had lost
and thought never recovered), "and your words
"have never left my mind.  Until that day,
"I had not noticed you, nor realized
"how beautiful, how wholly beautiful,
"you are.  I need to spend more time
"with you, a lot more time---that is, if you
"will have me."  Your thoughts stagger at her words:
she is more beautiful than fantasy
allows; and this encounter---here and now---
is more than your imagination could
contrive in its best moments.  While the sound
catches in your throat, you just smile and nod.
At that she seems to be rather relieved.
(Future adjustments do not yet appear:
Monday you will walk with her---clasping hands---through halls
of staring eyes, dropped jaws with silent mouths
in shock.  The two of you will eat alone,
while everyone else in the lunchroom stares.
By Friday, she will have lost several friends,
and you will have gained some.  And by month's end,
you two will completed plans for prom---
colors that match, and where to eat before
arriving).  Suddenly, her voice becomes
sultry, as if dripping with hot desire.
"Take your shoes off," she tell you.  And without
question, you have them off with record speed.
As she looks at your mismatched stripey socks,
she says, once more. "You are so beautiful,"
and then, "I have been stupid for so long:
"I never noticed, never bothered to
"look past my nose, or what someone else thought,
"But I can make up for that lost time now."
You both fall gently to the fragrant grass:
hand groping; even unshod feet embrace,
while lips and tongues engage in kisses that
no poet has yet found words to describe.