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Andrea Briggs

jorolesya

i fell in love with this girl
(well she was a woman really
thirty-one years old and
working for an accounting firm
somewhere in that bit of russia the
mapmakers forgot to attach)
with watery blue eyes and tissue paper skin
like a postcard from 1984
and blonde hair wisping to her chin
in the sexiest dorothy hamill i've ever seen

i never did learn how to spell her name
(even though i signed it next to mine
in restaurant guest registers
as though it meant she loved me back)
but she held my hand as we walked
through the scottish highlands
and she smiled and refused a cigarette

(the shutter whirs
click-stops
catches the image of
her hand on my waist
but not the cool touch
that lingered for days
after the bus pulled away.)

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