Eighteen By Thomas Zimmerman

Eighteen

Those weekend nights, I’d leave the house to drink 
and drive: Volkswagen Beetle, first-love girl-
friend (call her Fancy: that’s one way I think
of her), her red hair, singing voice, the twirl
of her soft tongue with mine, her rabbit heart-
beat, touches quick and delicate. Twined on
the riverbank with her, our beers half-gone,
the army blanket underneath us part
hair shirt, part featherbed. The river smelled
of fish, the frogs and crickets screamed. Her moon-
lit breasts felt soft as any hand that held
or fed me. Night, of course, must fade to noon:
we didn’t last. The leaves changed colors, fell.
A well-worn tale, but one I must retell.

Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review https://thebigwindowsreview.com/ at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in The Beatnik Cowboy, M58, and the anthology Extreme Sonnets. Tom’s website: https://thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com/