HOLDING HANDS IN HIGH SCHOOL

After crossing
a canyon of fear
where small deaths
were lily pads
across the divide
& finding her fingers,
then hands, pulling me,
like liferopes of possibilities,
(and despite an erect & pulsating newness),
gave form & meaning to Curtis' Gypsy Woman.

Suddenly,
poetry made sense;
we were meant to be sung.
Old as we were being born
into a soiled & sordid world,
yet as unabashed as desire must be,
we read each other
in that mischevious look,
a smile worthy of Mona
and a leap into a trust
that defied your history
granting, finally, a childhood,
full of fancy & exploration
flushed with a kitten's curiousity
and a lion's hunger.

We bumped hips
making our way
from the stale
high school morning
into a new day
of frivolousness--
she in her jeans,
tight hot everything
and me in my coolness--
cutting those stupid classes
of dullness & dandruff,
trying to figure out
how I could be this lucky.

We had taken the chance to look
for that most elusive minute
in a corner of convenience--
whether in a four postered bed
overlooking the Atlantic,
or on a mildewed mattress
in an abandoned Coney Island tenement--
to discover each other
again and again and again
in an indifferent home
that was vacant that day
and welcomed our foolishness
and our courage
to enter.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2019