Poem 417

If a poem is about capturing a moment then this certainly does that, perhaps too uncomfortably … while true for the awkward adolescent I was, maybe some things don’t change even for a contemporary generation of seemingly-poised teens  …

Fumbling

Under the sky you lie shirt open
bra undone and pushed up
looking straight up your glasses full of clouds
and my hands on your breasts moving
rounding feeling your nipple push
between my fingers
soften again until I brush it
with my fingertips the edge of a sleeve
as if by accident

I'm embarrassed
that I can't seem to stop
that all our talking and walking comes to nothing
compared to this midpoint of every walk
when with an air of inevitability you unbutton your shirt
and let me in and lie like now staring up
not unhappy not helping or stopping me
as I try to stuff enough of your body
into my brain to make up for a whole world
of clothes

we won't have sex you've already
told me that
I slip my finger into the waistband of your jeans
for variation more than anything
your eyes might be closed behind
the perfect reflected skies I pull open the dome
undo the zip and work the jeans halfway down
your hips you lie quiet and the mysteries in your head
are as beyond me now as then bending my intensity
and my lips to your belly wanting to bite
remembering the desperation of couples dry humping
rolled in blankets by the river when I was a boy
not understanding it even now that it's my own
desperation

sun warm on your groin you're indifferent
to my shame at being so obvious
showing my want so clearly
I push my hand between your legs
the moment when you will take my wrist
comes nearer 
                             the moment when you should
have taken my wrist 
has perhaps already been

you lie blank open to the sky
I crouch above you like a chimpanzee
at a typewriter