Picnic Table

We sat outside

at the picnic table,

drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

I asked you to take out your barrettes, you said yeah, and as you glanced up,

Your hair danced up and down.

I smiled, you got shy, you said 'don't smile',

I said 'why', you said 'just don't',

I said 'okay, I won't'.

And I smiled.

And your skin caught like wildfire,

like there was no need for the sun,

You placed a finger on my cheek,

you said 'that had to be done'.

You carved something like a comma

And I wondered what would come.

We went inside, I pet your cat,

you said 'I think she's lonely,

I think she needed that'.

I said 'are you lonely too?'

You said, 'no girl, that kind of talk won't do'.

You said 'the futon's kind of lumpy,

but the bed's pretty smooth'.

And then I thought about her laughing heart and all the tears that make us grow

And I looked into your smiling eyes and all the lines that take me so, so,

So much further than I intended to go. I said

'thanks for the bed

I think the lumps will have to do'.

You said

'it's better that way'.

I said 'yeah, I think so too..."

And then I thought about her laughing heart

and all the lines that make it

And I tucked that heart into the cradle of my brain

cause I'd never want to break it.

But I still picture your hair sometimes,

dancing all wild in the dark

I still wonder about that comma carved

so curiously hard and sweet.

And yeah, sometimes I finish that sentence

you left there on my cheek.

Cause you know us poets,

We like our moments complete.