Groupie and First Love, poems by Jane Williams

today I fall in love
with the woman at the bus stop
I fall in love with her sky blue earplugs
and lolly pink backpack
I fall in love with her half closed eyes
suggesting a foot in heaven’s door
I fall in love with the way she sways
like a professional mourner
or an amateur drunk
dangerously close to the edge
of being discovered but mostly
I fall in love with the way she sings
too loudly off key
not knowing half the words not caring

I wait for the bus I want to be there
join in
when the windows shatter their applause

looking back now I wonder
what chance did we really have
in the long run
both of us needing to be saved
but not yet knowing from what
we read Wuthering Heights by candle light
sang Johnny Cash’s Long Black Veil
etched our names into anything
we thought would stand the test of time
once I turned to walk in the opposite direction
away from the edge
and you asked if I was trying to kill you
how dramatic we were believing love
could only be written in blood
years later you tried to sell encyclopedias
and I tried to stop writing
small acts of betrayal but enough to undo us