First Love

Can Memories Recapture That Moment in Time?

Photo by DWC

remember her mother
clomping down the stair to see the priest
ferocious
how I admired her mother
fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, she said

mark her father
no wolf but how
wise an adviser,
gentle, civil eye sir,
walking to work

see her sisters! each their own

recall the highland house
perpendicular optic
inwardly gothic
full-screened back porch
and floral display,
flowing down and away

she herself
an island in that strange sea
a gleam, a blaze, a luster

our road trip to nowhere
beginning an ending
the truth of despair
but we saw the South!

we slept in my father’s bed

I picked up that hitchhiking boy
a portent of heartache and joy
and mystery