I cannot recall her name,
pretty as she was,
taking me on that crossing
to the island, the other side,
holding my hand,
a new experience,
of other’s bone and flesh,
before only my own:
She made me balance, barefoot,
with my shoes strung, because
the weir head, a concrete slab,
was our submerged bridge,
rushed cold by the constant
flowed inches of water;
then we were there,
over, into the skinny woods,
no tree much older than her,
she being older than I,
in amongst tight saplings,
and there she pushed me,
against a thin trunk.
We called them ‘snogs’,
her breath inside me,
and her roaming tongue,
as foreign as a thick snake,
it performed a dance,
charming me, hardening me,
but it was then stopped:
A laugh, a man watched,
and she touched again,
to feel her effect on me,
and they walked away.