The Boy
I think
maybe
I do want romance –
seeing it in the boy’s hair
espresso dark, dirty,
pulled back from his brow,
the luck of his youth in the sweeping stroke
he takes of the soft flop that falls over the front of his face
sometimes.
He doesn’t know
the taste in my mouth,
that I’m sucking raspberry laced white chocolate from the deli,
that I’m thinking about crystal lamps and glass door knobs
for the flat.
Cream linen for the bed.
The boy doesn’t know
so many things.
The power
of his fisherman’s jumper,
the hole in the sole of his boot,
the way he once said
arnica
was just the thing
for my bruises.
Rita Johnston is an Edinburgh based writer of fiction and poetry. Her work has recently appeared in the online magazines FeatherLit and Metazen, and is forthcoming in Octavius 2.