Mary Buchinger: At Twenty

          I loved your room on the top floor
in that rangy grey house, drawings
torn from magazines tacked to the wall
above your crowded desk:
                                        Too loose, Lautrec!
A man drowning in his cartoon suit
vibrating in crayon greens and orange,
               a tailor with pins in his mouth looks up.
                                And I, too young.
Did anyone say that? Only later do we know
each age we were.
                          Once I drove a long summer night
to your ragged room, to the soft and narrow
tin-tined bed, to your arms where morning sun
poured its gold,
                white sheet winding across your thigh  
where I placed a blue-speckled enamel bowl
of fresh-washed grapes.
                                  How they glistened
skins taut, ready to burst against our teeth,
cold, tart.



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