we met late in the night after
years without correspondence on
a moonlit beach bordering
the eastern shore of Lake Erie
I almost didn’t make it, I almost
didn’t come, but her name had come up
recently, and she had called, so
I hit the liquor store just before
the neons punched the clock, figuring
why not? it’s still summer, right?
I’m still young, and I drove off
southward through the warm dark
full up on fuel and thoughts, in
debt with agencies and expectations
somewhere between an hour
and an hour and a half later
I arrived, I parked by a
rundown little diner,
questionable to the naked
eye if it were still in
operation, which illuminated
one of my many lovelorn
desire-drenched dreams from
a lifetime past or future
of owning a place just like it
in the middle of a nowhere
just like that, living above
where we serve greasy food all
day and cheap booze all night
with a girl who might be
just like her…
a friend of mine met me and led me
up and back and over and down
to a beach where a few people
sat around a fire and she lay
on a blanket, laughing
I walked through the sand in socks
and shoes with rum in a brown paper
bag thinking I should have worn
different footwear and judging by
the haggard viscosity of the
remaining crew I should have
shown up much earlier but, alas!
there we were!
before I knew it she was pulling me
down, she was soft and her hands were
curious so I answered their questions
and I asked some back, we lay down
in the sand and posed greater hypotheses
to which the folks around us decided they
wanted no part in controls and variables,
they were in no condition for research
of any type, leaving us alone to sort out
the data and draw conclusions
however we saw fit
her and I had a brief past (we
weren’t there to study history)
mostly of platonic friendship,
a few times of something more,
but it was never the right time
nor place nor person among other
obstacles pitfalls cliffhangs
and roadblocks that are ohsocommon
and ohsonecessary in so many areas
of our so-called lives
the moonlight cut through everything
and made it clear—so, so clear—
and though she had always been
an attractive girl, she was never as
downright ravishing as she was that
night on the beach, wearing
the moon as makeup and the
sand as lingerie, the waves
rolling in so soft to crash,
so soft and crashing, washing away
everything everything everything
and taking me away with it
she straddled me and said
things like: “if I like it,
I take it” and “you’ve always
been such a babe” and “I want
you to think of every girl
who’s ever done you wrong”
I looked up at her and said
things like: “how would you
like to waste the next two years
of your life?” and “how much
did you drink?” and “we’re not
gonna take this too far” as
the moon revealed a girl I had
never seen before and the sand
jumped in and the waves had their say
I told her how nice it was,
how I was really enjoying myself,
trying my best to take it all in
for all that it was for as long
as it was because it was a once
in a lifetime moment we were
sharing and it was for
us and only us and that’s
pretty special if you ask me;
a big part of what life’s about—!
we passed out on the sand
by the waves below the moon
with each other and when we
awoke it was dark and chilly
so we beat feet up to the cottage
and found a bed, sand a small dog
tagging along, moon a teen voyeur
peeking through blinds, waves
a lover’s melody whispering
sweet nothings sounding more
and more like lullabies…
waking up it was gone, all of it:
the moonlight, muscled out by
the sun’s rays; the waves
as we departed—hers and mine
and the lake’s; the sand
when I got home, clean and smooth
down the drain, back from
whence it came
whatever that night was was never meant
to be figured out or defined or continued,
I knew these things in the moment
although I extended my hand afterward—
it seemed only right the enchantment—
the sparkle, the glisten,
the glow—melt away
to ill-driven motives and
thoughtlessness on her end,
open-minded desperation on mine,
as she dropped her clues that
she wasn’t into me, and I
needed not a monocle to decipher
those hints and back off
two weeks later she was dating
a different guy; it made sense:
I wasn’t ready to give her a
relationship, they seemed a fair
fit, and the cogs of courtship must
have already been churning on that
one during the night which we
shared our abbreviated vacation
from everything and everything
hey—no harm, no foul!
and even if that night is
nothing but a nebulous escapade
to her, it did mean something
to me, and I’m glad it’s strong enough
to stand on its own two after
its premature boot from the womb,
because we probably never could
have topped it anyway…
though it sure as hell
would have been fun to try
Ghost Town Theatre 