Down the Road

She sits on the pier, bare toes
dangling just below the water’s surface,
denim fringe like blue anemones
circling her thighs where his gaze
rests.
She is a lonely fourteen.
He is a handsome twenty-one.
A sudden summer breeze blows her
blonde hair into a halo around her head,
thunderclouds gather on the horizon
like a premonition. He captures a tendril
between his fingers, soft and yielding.
Smiles.
In one graceful movement she rises,
walks away trailing a scent
of Love’s Baby Soft – all he’ll ever have of her.

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Prompt via Napowrimo.net : “Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely.”

I chose my line from Only as the Day is Long by Dorianne Laux. The line is in her poem “Girl in the Doorway”:

“She walks through the house, a goddess,
each window pulsing with summer.”

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Image of vintage Love’s Baby Soft ad via Pinterest.