Sit at the table,

the booth that was only whimsy, fiction until this moment,

smooth the java with single servings of nostalgia

and laugh a laughter deep,

nourish me for a lifetime.

Can you still feel the battered tire swing

burning the backs of our legs,

or soft Summer stinging our shoulders?

Those days that rose with innocence

set with clumsy words,

not fascinated by your lips or your hips,

but the way your collarbone suddenly escaped my view,

curving angles of geometric wrists.

Cowardice would prevent a kiss,

only hoping to weave

your fingers, arms, pinky toes with mine,

part scholar, part toddler, part lover,

and three parts martian;

hiding my bald shins, puffing out my chest,

straining to sing ‘Stand By Me’ outside your window,

Did you notice?

Under calculated sips, you ask, How have you been?

Separated by circumstance,

tabloids lined street corner news stands,

watching from afar as time made you lovely,

reading anxiously your life’s headlines.

Walking through hidden bookcases, like a Nancy Drew

suspect in a mysterious crime,

how you would thrill me!

But a heroine cannot pass a note

or wheeze, inhaling a first smoke.

On a sixteenth birthday, she is not on my right.

Crashing on tile floors, your story dissolves

to faded photographs.

In this moment, step out of grey still

slide into my daydream’s corner booth.

Brief, though it may be,

become my soul mate for this breakfast,

marry me over coffee,

name our children Flapjack and Boysenberry,

then count this another memory,

for after this day

I will read your story no more.