Those Summer Nights (Poem)
Do you like this poem?
Then check out my poetry book,Digging to China, released by Sweatshoppe Publications. This poem is in it, along with fifty others. Signed copies are available through Sweatshoppe Publications. It's also available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.
The following poem was first published in the December 2012 edition of The Rusty Nail.
I own all rights, foreign and domestic. I hope you enjoy it!
Those Summer Nights
(with apologies to Robert Hayden)
by Justin W. Price
Those summer nights,
when we could still smoke in those
24 hour cafes,
we’d sit with giddy laughter,
and drink coffee while the butts piled.
The patient waitress
(who would not be cute
if you did not know her)
would make us order an omelet
and bring five forks.
We’d share it with our best
mixed company jokes,
our thoughts
on politics, religion, the future
(which was so far ahead of us).
Three ashtrays and four
carafes later,
our eyes burned with pleasure,
our stomachs twisted into nauseating knots,
our muscles tight and achy,
the waitress sat massaging her swollen legs
while smoking our cigarettes, and we’d exit
into the twilight
to get short sleep
before our menial labors.
The damp air bit our skin,
disguised our fatigues as we
hugged goodbye.
And then we drove away
to our respective futures
(which were not so far away),
and wished we’d ignored
the burning.
All rights reserved. Copyright Justin W. Price 2012.