WINTER MUSING

BOY AND GIRL AND LOVE IN 1962

And the December weather
was upon you and the winter

evenings were drawing in and
she wanted to hold your hand

as you walked home after getting
off the school bus and the cold

air bit into flesh and you held her
hand and sensed the pulse in her

and the life there and the skin
on skin thing and some kind of

electrical buzz through your veins
and into your heart and head and

the traffic went by fast pushing up
wet from the road and you remember

the black tarmac then and her years
later by cruel cancer dragged dead.