An Old Man Remembers the Beautiful Girls of his Youth

An Old Man Remembers the Beautiful Girls of his Youth

By Steve Griffin

V ague as childhood memories only known through tales,

Elusive as the half-remembered dream,

Illusory as shimmering colors that light reflects through water spray,

The phantasmagoric train of beautiful young girls from his past startle

the old man’s mind.

They are not a static gallery of still-life faces and bodies, but rather

flashes of color, distorted images that flow, mingle, dissipate,

sounds that fade and echo, touches that linger less than a breath

of wind on barely ruffled water.

Brown legs that scissor in sunlit dance, knees that dimple as skirts

slide up thighs as tawny and supple as young lionesses, lips seem

to touch his so subtly their breath would not disturb a dandelion,

Yet they dagger him with myriad memories of kisses of all flavors

and all fervors.

Eyes green, blue, black, brown, gold flecked, hair swinging and swaying

in liquid rhapsodies, red-gold-ebony, all separate, but one, as softly

plucked strings of a harp vibrating together.

His poor heart questions.

Did these old eyes ever see such sights?

Did these old ears ever hear such melodies?

Did these old lips ever taste such ripeness?

Or is this just a wishful delusion of aging clay,

trying vainly to deny the grave?