Member-only story
The Years Had Not Been Kind
The fading away of a woman of the light
She the wild child of my youth. Blue
eyes of a European princess, the knowing
smirk, no matter what we fantasized over
bottles of wine, hiding in the back booth
of the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco, she
already tried it, then leaned across the table,
explaining in great detail until my face
flushed and me wonderfully embarrassed.
It was the eighties, me the innocent guy
from the Midwest with boring stories
of keg parties in corn fields, now living
in a city not yet touched by death, where
my gay friends came to parties in leather
chaps and wife beater tee shirts, the straight
girls refusing to enter a nightclub without
four inch heels and a four inch skirt.
She, an LA girl, my office mate, always just
one shot away from a lost weekend with a guy
she met an hour ago. Afraid of nothing, I’ll try
anything once her motto of life, me trailing in
her wake, small town boy in a city that never
slept, we’re going to a new bar tonight…
