Monday, 29 December 2014

Perfect Strangers


Sometimes we sense a mutual attraction but can’t be sure, past mistakes gathering like vultures to pounce on the remains of yet another disappointment or worse.

Gay or straight, you know the feeling…that this just might be the One, but self-confidence is shaky after taking so many knocks…  

Well, what’s the worst that can happen? He (or she) is not interested. It's hardly the end of the world...

Whatever, every stranger is a potential friend if not more, so...worth finding out, surely, and letting time and tide take its course? 


Someone may not turn out to be the love of our lives, but the love of a good friend can never be overrated. 

PERFECT STRANGERS 

Shirt front hung wide open, red hairs
on his chest;
tongues of fire, leaping out at me,
licking at my nipples,
rekindling desire, teasing this cold heart
with dreams once cherished,
long forsaken;
liquid eyes spilling over, soaking my tee
like spring rain,
letting a body breathe again after years
of choking on ashes,
living on flashes of memory

I long to take this stranger in my arms,
be close to someone again,
yet dare not even ask his name,
can but look, my life
an open book if he but cares to flick a page
or two, sewn with paper thin threads
of flesh and bone, sure to snap
should he come any closer, neither of us
quite ready to give word or sign
that we’re peeping through the keyhole
of a door to a heaven
that has rarely welcomed us before

Lips parting, tongues shyly peeping,
hearts fairly leaping...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2011

[Note: revised from an earlier version that appears in 1st eds. of A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]


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