2.17.2007

Barely Legal


everything felt too small
that night at the high school dance,
or perhaps just real for the first time.
the ceiling hovered low,
the lights flickered dimly on the walls;
echoes of the days we lived in caves.

we stood there, and despite the rainbow-
colored mats that hung on the walls,
we felt grown-up, in-charge,
worthwhile to ourselves and to others.
that was the night i stood
the same height as you, though it was a fact
that you were an inch taller.

that was the night we stood in the doorway,
smiling quietly at each others’ ankles,
and you surprised me for the first time
by placing yourself in my arms.

i had my coat on, unzipped, and your arms
slipped inside it and around my waist.
you called me Warm, and
for the first time, i think, it was true.
you smelled like butter and cinnamon,
and we stood together on the threshold.

it didn’t occur to me then, but i suppose now
that to the parents waiting in their cars,
outside, we must have looked a portrait
of young lovers, silhouetted
in the yellow light of the gymnasium,
taking our sweet time in each other’s arms –

though i was sixteen, new to love,
while you were seventeen,
and already into college.