amphibi.us

These hills hold more than coal.
There must be veins of diamond.
How else would promises still echo,
A generation after they were said?
How else would images stretch in the air,
As if reflected from one mirror to another to another,
For all this time?

On the way to a friend’s house, last Saturday,
I passed a pond where I saw again,
That I was never young.

Take that long ago night we swam naked in the warm moonlight here,
And nothing happened.
We used the joints we shared as an excuse,
And the fear we’d get caught trespassing,
And then the freezing water,
Though your nipples didn’t show it.

And though we kissed,
It was with the desire of eating the raw vegetables that were good for us;
So we dried quickly and nervously laughed,
As we did when we found the term paper we had misplaced.

You said you admired me for my control,
That I could stop whenever I wanted to,
Like a well-trained dog that will let you take food from its mouth.
You even said, as we drove back to town,
You were relieved, because
You could hear the whimpering of a child in the back of your mind.

But we were in our prime,
And the evening was ours.
But rather than confront a lack of inclination,
We both believed I was responsible.

© Ron Yazinksi, 2010

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