The Morning After

First, remembering
how cool her skin was under your fingers
when you first touched it,
though it did not stay that way…then,

hearing your mother’s angry heels
in the downstairs hallway as she starts in with,
“Are you up?  What time
did you get in? Did your idiot friend

bring you home? I didn’t hear
his muffler this time — did he get it fixed?
Get down here or you’ll be late for school.
We’ll talk about this tonight.”

Still wrapped in last night,
you rouse yourself from the shining inside you
to consider the answers
you’d like to give her: no, it was not

your idiot friend did not bring you home.
He hasn’t fixed his muffler. You don’t know
what time you got home, but there’s no way
you’ll be late for school today,

and no,
you will not talk with her
about any of this
tonight.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations, love-poems