[no title – first line]

 

Tonight I saw two women

young, walking like men,

beside one another

 

Tonight I saw two women,

young, walking like men, beside

one another, through the city.

 

And I remembered,

how it is to walk that way,

quiet, staggered, keeping pace

Not speaking, but looking out,

Knowing where the night will end.

 

Where do they go –

these girls of mine

Where do they go, without me?

 

I had that love, that rests

between the spaces of their arms

their jacket shoulders,

the one that goes unnoticed

but to those that know,

 

how it is to walk beside,

and not to touch.

 

##

by Shannon Nissa Bailey Powers

October ‘02