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Chocolate Girl
I discovered a hair one evening
in a bar of chocolate:
as I bit into its sweetness
a single strand remained entangled
in my teeth, quite four inches
so I knew it wasn’t mine
And as I pulled its tickle from my lips
and held it glinting to the light
its auburn richness glowed at me as if
from somewhere beyond a frosted glass
Did she comb her hair that morning, sitting
at her window seat, sun warming bare shoulders—
hair she might have unpinned the night before
to let down in soft spangles over her lover
as she rose over him, a dusky flower, rose
and fell, each stroke of petals soft across his chest?
Did she listen to the birds that day
on her way to the factory
give the cat a plate of milk
paint her fingernails, choose a special scarf?
Did she see me sitting there
in the back row of the cinema
that evening, so close she could have
leaned aside a fraction as she extracted
the last morsels of popcorn from her box,
allow her long hair to accidentally brush my arm
and leave me believing in dusky whisperings
chocolate longings that lingered for decades?
Somewhere beyond a frosted glass, waiting,
did she see me there?
© Johnmichael Simon
2008
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