Couch

[Camy]

Couch.

by Camy

You were lying on Rebecca's couch,

shorts covering nothing and

a smile that said everything:

instantly aroused - I gawped.

That hot, hot summer, you wore shorts a lot

and little else beside.

Tanned skin, dark locks, chocolate eyes:

you were edible - to my mind.

If I sat, you'd sit beside me,

warm coltish legs nestled against mine.

Elbow play and giggles annoying the others,

and M: whose eyes shot daggers at us both.

Those sultry nights I turned and tossed,

and dreamt of what could be.

Yet the four years that separated us -

a fucking chasm too far to cross:

with you at seventeen.

The where, the when, the you: I remember clearly.

Your name, sadly, gone.

I wonder, where are you now?

http://www.awesomedude.com/camy/poetry/couch.mp3

[Cole Parker]

You're a remarkable poet, Camy. I can feel that one, feel the emotions, the excitement, the wanting. Your voice speaks directly to my memories.

C

[bi_janus]

Camy,

I read this today during the lunch break at a training I was conducting for firefighters and cops. Not one dissonant note disturbed the poem's deep affect on me. Like Cole's experience I was transported to times in my youth when I had similar experiences, and like all fine poems, this verse clarified those memories and their associated feelings. When I trudged home an hour ago, I shared the poem with Ann, who smiled as she read and then said, "He must have been in the same room with us when we first knew each other," such was the evocation for her. Thanks so much for sharing this.

I have a small group of poems that I keep handy to read occasionally. This one is going in the file. Sometimes I read a verse and smile so much that I think, "I wish I would have written that."

[Camy]

Thank you both for your kind comments. I'm grinning like a lune, and feeling very tea and buttered crumpets, with honey, by a mid-winter fire.

[DesDownunder]

I must add that you have evoked the same feelings in me, Camy. The distance between the legs on the couch is a favourite memory of mine.