Poem: RUG RIDE, by Peter Barton

A wet Saturday night
And the girls can’t decide
To go uncool with umbrellas
Or risk their curls without
The street sways free
Looking for a fight
Late for a connection

No prowling tonight
Not for me
With you, sweet boy
I’m always where I want to be.

We are taken by the give
Of our dusky rug
The amnesty of the evening
Heals up our headlines.

I stroke your forehead
As my father stroked mine
Though never long,
Never long
enough

And I realize how much
Through all my life
I’ve expected what I gave
To come back to me.

But all I got
Was a chance at the end
To stroke my dad’s hair
As he lay dying

It took us that long
To turn all the tables.

So
I stopped waiting for boomerangs
Of such unwrinkled joy
Giving doesn’t mean
You get.
Just take a toke and pass it on
Like yesterday’s paper…

We don’t breathe as one
You are twice as fast
Muffled in my armpit
Your hair so fine
It sticks to my chin
Reminds me to shave.

I have you now
So close to my life
That it seems very near
When you’ll stroke my hair
As I stroked my father’s
On that dry rainy night
When the walls drew in…

Author: poetryfest

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