Page 11 - Contrast1992Spring
P. 11

In Honor of Your Engagement

Shelly, remember sixteen?                  For the war, even I lost my head.
Parked in that big green car               I wrote the jerk in Saudi, where he'd been
On an empty lot after Homecoming?          gone
Heard you giggle but couldn't see your     Oh, for more than sixteen
curly head                                 Weeks. He was a hero upon homecoming.
From the back with my date, now long       Think he'd give up drinking - good old
gone.                                      Nathan
You were, of course, with Nathan.          Who drove us around in his big green car.

Can you forgive my introducing you to      I look at you across the car,
Nathan?                                    Longer hair on your curly head,
What did I know at sixteen?                Body bigger from Baby, of course from
Parent chauffeurs gone,                    Nathan
Big guy - over six foot-had a car,         You won't dump him now, that hope's
Obeyed whatever fantasy entered your       gone.
head                                       She'll be born in time for Daddy's Norfolk
Played defense in one Homecoming.          homecoming.
                                           Think Daddy's finally gotten past sixteen?
After bootcamp he made a homecoming.
Navy promised to make a man of Nathan,     Key'll tum in the car, you'll be packed and
All they did was shave his head.           gone.
He hired hookers, drank sixteen            I'll bow my head and dream of your Home-
Beers, wrecked your car.                   coming.
While you kept forgiving, my patience was  Maybe he's not so bad, that Nathan? ... if
gone.                                      only we were still sixteen.

When the "America" docks, you're up and                                            Lisa Windsor
gone
For a shore-leave weekend homecoming.
His cig butts singe theseats of your car.
My cheeks bum, you call late night, about
Nathan
Who slurs at you sixteen
"Bitch"s and "whore"s, reeling you with a
smack on the head.

                                           "
   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16