Blue Eyed Poet Number 2

This was in the days of living on the coast, drinking in the afternoons, selling organic veggies and longing for the writer's life.

Bouncing with the Blue Eyed Poet -  a memory

Bouncing with the blue eyed poet, she wears other people’s cast offs. She knows she looks good, tube top, purple cotton jacket, black slinky synthetic skirt.  All turning this caterpillar into a butterfly.  They bounce together to the loud music in the gym.

Her hair is curly and her teeth are white. The blue eyed poet is suave, sexy, smiling. Bouncing together, they enchant the crowd. “What is this dance called” she shouts over the music, one hand grasping, pulling up the tube top. The blue eyed poet mimics. He is a chameleon; his eyes a mirror. His smile a cipher, slight, oh so sexy, buck teeth.

“Who knows,” he bounces her out into the street, the cool night air, September on the coast. He kisses her on the chin. He is always doing things like that. “What is it you want of me,” she asks, hugging thin cotton jacket close. He looks perplexed. Troubled. “Want?” He shrugs.

“To play. To bounce. To kiss your cheeks.  Nothing.”

She knows this then is the end before there was even a beginning. Coffee, and poetry, and gossip, and walks along the mesa bluffs. All less than a beginning. This dance, this bounce, this moonless walk toward his not new, but well-kept car.  

There is meaning in the movement.

His wife is returning and his harmless flirtation is over.

She sticks out her hand. “Well, then, goodbye,” she says, her eyes dark, submerged. He shrugs again.

“I don’t believe in goodbyes.” He smiles his cryptic smile, walking away. She goes back to the gym, but the bounce is over, the band disassembling their equipment.

Her friend Daphne waits for her. She says, “let’s go get a beer,” and the two friends cross the street to the Kingfisher Saloon, now in full post-dance boom.  

“No,” she says. “I want a grown up drink.”  They order martinis at the bar and sip until last call.