When as a boy

I sat, a survivor, back to forlorn graffitiI had studied, my body’s inferno cooledafter a winter’s night dressed thinly,the only thing in the cell apart from mewas an overlooked mat of worn raffiaI had wrapped around the hurry of paintrying to sleep, so cold, dozing, drifting awaketurning carefully, bone-cold, wrists togetherbetween my thighs, seeking small warmth.

I daydreamed of my girl’s pink velvety bedroomblearily aware her world was never mine,daydream now, about a time I keep close,a story of hurt, half-lit, I enter sometimes,dreamed of freight trains moaning in the nightto distant places I might reach some dayfor I was, remember, still a boy,my aching heart now in a cage of old ribsas unlikely as walking free that bleak morning.

Walking our cold road after your overnight staya waft of morning wood smoke tangsuggested our distant zesty arrival here,the attendant blind faith in happenstance,true of my cell time, a scraped scarred daywhen I sat, guardian angel exhausted,as the crash of opened doors drew ever closer,faith, the flame in our cells that feeds dreams,youthful hope unfurling the murmur of days.