The Doe-Eyed Girl with Late August Skin

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THE DOE-EYED GIRL WITH LATE AUGUST SKIN

Written by

David Steven Simon


Time is the quotidian commute of the sun
The month-long striptease of the moon
The lazy hammock sway of the pendulum
The rhythmical throbbing of our arteries
which guarantees us safe passage
through the waters of tomorrow.

It’s the only thing that we want
When we’re in love
And it is the one thing that we cannot bear
When our beds are haunted
and we know
the precise count of
the pink dahlias
which are in perpetual bloom
on the walls of the room.

Time is the fourth dimension
in the space continuum
of the writers’ imagination
powered by impulse and
the velocity of
the heart
Which can journey us back to
the creation of pain
Or to the
threshold moment of 1970
when
The doe-eyed girl with
Late August skin
answered the door
With sopping wet hair
And a hastily snapped
work shirt
whose beauty struck me down like
Capa’s fallen, soldier.

Time
Most of the time
Is a most accommodating plaything
which we can twirl
with unbound joy
Like the Great Dictator’s
buoyant balloon globe

Until suddenly
Without warning
It detonates
Like a nuclear blast
wishes
and dreams
perish
like opinions
And instead of survivors
being airlifted
By God
or the capable
We retrogress
Back to the womb
where we are
trapped
dependent
terrified.

And so we wait.

Without the pacifying companionship of time
To be reborn
so we can
once again
gallop
like wild stallions
through elysian grasslands
where we will someday
soon
be kissed
and held in someone’s arms again.

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