The Poem That Was Supposed To Be Here

The Poem That Was Supposed To be Here

It had a lot oooh oh oh oh ohhhh in it.
Sort of was a secret glance that knew
I knew it was you. Even if you didn’t.
It leaned into glass counters, asked for coffee refills
from this pretty waitress. It liked her,
her sweet eyes and salty remarks.
This poem has his old man’s heart,
a V-8 engine, and a compulsion
toward the American dream. It has lips
familiar with cigarette smoke in a July night
and the lot behind Saint Catherine’s High.
Youth and death in the songs that carried
on into the night. It had a beat notebook,
grease stained jeans, and a starving heart
capable of writing poetry just as sweet and tart
as the Judy’s Lemon Meringue pie,
always sold out before he could get off work.
She’d save him a slice in the back cooler,
if he promised to pick her up at shift change
and take her for a drive and read her
a poem or two, that she’d hear as direct letters to herself.
It’d knock the old wind right out of her lungs.
Her excitement racing like the whiskey in his old flask,
rushing through the tunnels of his body. She still
smells it when she parks the car for church on Sundays
in the lot behind Saint Catherine’s. The smell so strong,
it burns as she swallows hard and fast,
the poem that once was.