What Was, What Is, And What We Wished

High grass in the haze of melody

Summer intrusions and the smoke is lit

Soft kiss of introduction

Nothing too offensive

I noticed your facial hair

More than any frame of sexuality

Can’t ask for more than your breath

Pushing against mine

And the sweet music is played

Pretending it is summer

It almost fools us

But the smell of the ashtray

Filled with water and the cigarette filter rowboats

Brings us back to the damp autumn day that it is

Our scarves keep our necks warm

But I believe it should be each other’s arms

Slung like shawls over shoulder and nape

Like comrades in photographs

Or friends on the beach

Covering the skin that is tender and white

Soon to be burnt and reddened by the wind and sun

Ah the summer it always returns

Here we must sit though

And what of it?

Are we not content to watch cars drive

Their headlights turned on although it is day

Making other’s aware that they exist

Like us with our bright eyes

Shining through the dirty, unwashed, darkness

Brightened by the embedded reflections

Of countless cigarette ends

Are we not content to feel the scarves

Wrapped sharply around our necks?

Bursting out warmth against the ribbon of Autumn’s cool

I kiss you and it is your facial hair I think of

For sexuality is caught in summer’s frame

And in these nights I am happy to be caught in the comfort of company