Boy Looks at Girl

I saw a boy see a girl today.

He was getting off the bus.

He glanced at her and then 

glanced again.

His face remained the same but his eyes

sparkled.

He was a Euro boy, so that’s just what his eyes did.

I couldn’t see what he saw of her.

All I could see 

was her tan brown shoulder draped with 

an innocent black strap of purse,

her rose pink nails tensed to the window frame.

Hard corner of a sun glass poking through a wave of hair.

She didn’t move when he looked.

They had matching skin.

He didn’t look back 

but I thought about it.

I was never a brown summer girl like her.

I was a 

pasty white girl with dark soup eye makeup and flat dyed hair.

Puffy skin and smothered in book.  

Never looking gently out of a window like this one.

If a sparkly Euro boy looked at me on the bus it would’ve been

because he was thinking,  “What the f**k is that?”

I never suited myself.

Or rather my self didn’t suit me.

I always wanted to trade my self in.

For a new one, a different one.

I hear we all felt that.

This girl was pretty and natural and tender all at once

just from the back of her.  

Maybe I was reading into her.

Reading her self over her shoulder.  

I’ll keep what I’ve read then

for myself.

Reviews

[Tree]

Great observational poetry, and even more so, you by injecting a scene from your past the way you did merged the past into the present, in a very personal way. Nice work here, Anne.

Diego

[Anne Goldmann]

Thank you Diego! It was a real train of thought that happened on a bus when I saw a boy see a girl. It's nice when the real mind can be brought into a tiny bit of focus. Thanks for your encouragement.

[Samuel Dickens]

How very interesting to be allowed inside the narrator's mind and hear those thoughts. We just never know what others may be thinking of us. Excellent writing.

[Anne Goldmann]

Thank you Samuel. It is interesting how a string of thoughts can be inspired by a stranger.

[Glen Yumang Manese]

I liked how you give us the observation from a vantage point and then turn things around with what is reflected back and compare to what one has experienced in the same aspect...but in a different atmosphere...

[Anne Goldmann]

Thank you Glen. It's like a reflection upon a reflection with some time travel. :-)

[Glen Yumang Manese]

you're welcome...