She almost didn’t know who I was,
‘Tony!’ she exclaimed!
Yes.
She couldn’t believe it was me.
“Your hair!” she mourned ruefully
“Yes, I know, it’s going!”
We’re so old now, she says,
Yes…
I follow her and her friends to a bar,
Off Lower Greenville,
We stay outside and smoke and catch up,
She can’t take her eyes off my head.
“Does it look that bad?” I ask.
“No!” she’s embarrassed, “I just…
Your hair was so perfect”
We talk about life,
She’s done with school,
Berates me for never going back,
She almost had a kid,
It was a miscarriage,
She feels it was for the best, but
It does hurt some days,
We talk of our times together,
The day we got into a fight because I
Didn’t know how to change a tire.
Alongside an empty back road
On our way home from San Antonio,
Which led to us fucking in the back seat
When a highway patrol car pulled up,
I got a ticket,
You laughed.
You said it was because the old man was jealous.
Me, mad that I was charged for lewd behavior and
You weren’t.
You initiated it.
You had the better job and could pay your ticket.
I eventually had to go sit mine out.
She laughs,
Her friends come back out,
To check on us,
I don’t think they like the fact she talking to a man,
But what do they know, they have no inkling
Of our past together, unless she told them,
When I wasn’t looking,
It all happened so fast, us running into each other,
Last I heard she was moving to Seattle
To work at a radio station.
We talked for so long, her friends had to leave
And I offer to take her home.
She agrees after some protest,
She’s staying back at her mom’s,
Her mom loved me,
We’re not in the car for long,
Before were up to our old tricks again,
Spontaneous love making is the best kind of love making,
It keeps you on your toes,
It lets you know you’re alive and still
Can rise to the occasion.
At a moment’s notice.
You still got it, I tell myself,
She rubs her fingers through my thinning hair
And whispers, “You were my Alexander”
Long ago,
We would stand naked in her bathroom
And admire one another in the mirror,
And she’d whisper those same words in my ear
Without the were, but you are,
“You are my Alexander,”
And I’d say back,
“You are my Cleopatra,”
I kiss her neck after she’s finished
And that’s when I see it
The lights in the back windshield and
A police officer approaching the car,
Flashlight in hand.
And we laugh.