I remember what didn't happen...

[DeepAsleep]

Poems back and forth about fictional memories:


me to her:

Remember steaming drive-ins
sitting on the hood of a car
sharing Cokes and
asinine commentary about movies
we couldn't afford to buy our
way into?

Remember you put hands
on my back windsheild
and I swore I'd never
wash your fingerprints away
by force of hand,
that I said only rain
could take your hands
and turn them into run-off,
dust and memory?

Remember stealing twinkies
from the gas station
to go along with the beer
we actually bought?

I remember a scene in
a laundromat
a washer full of water
and you shaving your legs
sitting on the next one down
dipping the razor in the
full, stopped washer
and being completely
unafraid.

She to me:

"I've got the matches this time"

Remember the robbery?
We scattered
desert mud (dry)
like gunpowder
from the bank safe to the door
covering cold marble with sun-stormed dust.

You lit it on fire with a gasoline soaked
cigarette
(I never quite understood how you smoked them
still wet)
and the dirt tried to put that fast, furious little flame right
out.
It was barren earth, remember.

But fifty dollar bills flew from my hands
(green doves of peace)
to feast on embers, and then
it was fire confetti.

Chicks dig scars, so
don't be sad.
Men love a good murderess,
or so they tremble to me.

And here we are.
And here we are.
We saved the dynamite for the walls of the prison;
I'll see you tonight
at midnight when the rapists purr themselves
to sleep.


~R