Do you remember when we smashed pennies
On the train tracks and saved spiders
From the wiggling tires of bicycles?
We used to do that near the ocean before the night fell and the waves
Crashed
Crashed
Crashed
Against an endless force of moonlight onto an endless shore.
I didn’t think we had anything to teach each other,
You and I.
Your eyes were the sky, so wide and blue,
They’re all I have left of you now,
and even they have turned grey.
We read stories and sang songs
of Guinevere’s grey eyes,
But she was the stuff of legend, drawn into the sand by our toes,
Galloped over by our cloven hooves.
Her eyes were green sometimes anyway.
I wish I had listened to everything you said
And watched everything you did,
Because I lost our magic.
Pennies don’t press right anymore,
Their zinc rims rip in ragged tears,
Sometimes I still save spiders
From shrieking teenagers in a stagnant classroom where pencil lead litters the floor.
Maybe my toes curl into the warm sand with ease,
But I miss the hooves and the swords.
They’re in some lost and found box
Somewhere in Southern California,
Waiting.
But where are you? Are your salt stained knees peeling with sun,
Or has the sun faded your big blue eyes?
I looked down at you,
When I should’ve been looking up.