Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Keeping Company

While Autumn air pinched us with frost,
I told my cousin of my girlfriend.
She was a different breed:
one on whom I could depend.
She had the love I need.

Where leaves descend to die,
my cousin and I,
shared in tales of women,
with beer-wet lips.

I said how she was loyal.
He said how his was faithful and each of us thought in silence.
Those moments, for which I'm grateful,
crystallize as powdery dew on bark's dark side,
in a mind grey with age.

My girl was too shy to display her love publicly.
It was something too personal to bare before any witness but me.
Less joy I had known, less warmth I could conceive, 'fore her's was shown.
Hands worn from a day's chopping, muscles torn, she massaged the weariness away.
My body barely settled in its' chair before a hot meal was laid there at our table.

His girl was his lap-warmer.
He would fall on his couch from a salesman's day of walking.
Then his boots were gone and her arms encircled his shoulders.
She'd hear his jokes and they'd share a laugh.
He loved to light candles and join her bubble bath.

The wind pressed us, trying to enter our thoughts.
We enjoyed recalled feelings for a while more.
Finally we rejoined everyone.