Once,
upon a dusty stage,
it was spring I think,
his fingers grazed,
my girl-soft arm,
peeping from a white t-shirt,
the one I wore on purpose,
it made me feel pretty,
he touched me,
because he couldn’t help it,
because he was a boy who wanted more,
he was reaching,
but in the moment settled for less,
the timing,
was slightly off,
he had his reasons,
I guess,
though, we both remember,
the lingering seconds,
of connection,
and he knew, as I did
what the touch meant,
first and foremost,
it was not an accident,
it meant something else,
and it was the only time,
he ever touched me,
and now, years have passed,
and I am old,
but I still think about,
that one time,
that one time after school,
under a dim, backstairs light,
near the EXIT sign,
the way he whet my appetite,
a touch that grew me dewy,
my rushing crimson, my youthful flush
it made me hot, then
but now,
now that I am old, renders me a wistful dreamer,
filled with words that should have been said,
though we were much too young,
and too careful with our hearts,
to whisper them, the words,
we kept our silence,
(and our distance),
instead,
and all that could have been,
was, it would seem, emphatically dead
though somehow, here and now,
inside what gives
all that could have been
still quietly lives,
lives on in vain,
upon that stage,
a bubbling memory contained,
a time, a place, a sexy moment framed,
an aging bit of nothing, really,
or was it something?
Oh, I think it was,
and it was pure,
it was but a grazing touch of something,
something missed,
of that,
I am sure.