RAPSCALLION

"rapscallion": lovely

word

thing I will

never be

lost my chance way back in '74

at Salt River Junction

ineptly named

coz that day

baby

there weren't no junction

(geen

aansluiting) passing

like two trains

in terminally

opposite

directions

except that there we were

in the same car, your

car

and you who had

professed no love

no real feeling

but a

moment earlier and

seemingly anxious

to offload me

sit me

gagged and bound

on the train home

suddenly

burst into something

someone I had not seen

and

if this was body

language here

was your body

and kisses that

I thought

rubbing home the

shock of

what I would never have

would spend a

lifetime missing

now I

see were the

real

real deal

and so there is postscript strangely

for us two never lovers

who talk

and chatter electronically

about lives and loves

those successes

and failures

and

occasionally

about ducking

not ducking

questions as to

a sexual shadow

cast by that

now wisest of elephants

that may or

on the

other hand may not

be in the room.

And yes

rapscallion is a lovely

impossible word