Leadville girl, Leadville girl…
I sometimes wonder if you are
still in your elevated world.
Our first date, our last date, our only date
My hand shook as I knocked on your door.
Your Mom let me in.
You had freckles on your arms, on your nose, on your chin.
Particles of pigmentation,
islands of beauty, sparkling speckles,
eleven thousand feet above the sea.
A summer Tuesday night in Leadville, Colorado.
The sidewalks curled up and sleeping by eight.
A tiny movie theater and an ice cream parlor
the only buildings breathing.
The movie was bad, the ice cream good
and we walked, and talked, teen-age talk
and touched fingers for the only time.
You wanted out, to travel, to roam, to be free.
To live in California. Like me.
I had you home by ten.
I said we’d stay in touch. But we didn’t…much.
A few letters, too many miles in between.
But I thought you, that night, the prettiest girl…
Leadville had ever seen.
I kissed you good-bye, gently...knees slightly shaking.
You kissed harder back.
I drove home to my brother’s,
the Milky Way, my celestial navigator,
a zigzag path…through cloud nine.
In my mind you still look the same,
a dish of strawberries…topped with stardust,
thirty seven years, after our only kiss.
Leadville girl, Leadville girl…did you escape…your elevated world.
I found love and safe harbor…can you hear me?
...or are you still yearning
Eleven thousand feet…and fourteen thousand days
…forever young… in my memory.
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