Time is a Springsteen song in that it may not have happened at all to anyone but it almost definitely happened to all of us, if you squint around the details, a little. There was no front porch in my youth with it's old wood boards creaking under foot as we danced to the tinny sound of our portable radio playing the eras of blue collar rock music. I don't have recollections of suped up hotrods and engine heavy motorcycles tearing up the east coast suburban streets as white knuckled operators behind the skid learned to forget her or just finally felt something come alive inside 'em again. No dark red hair blowing in the wind as her long skirt sways like a flag to the movement she keeps her hips in time to. Somehow, though the details are so different I find I still miss it. I remember tapping our feet to the open car door deep bass beat, sirens calling like the song of our people in the distance and the hard to describe but always present constant low hissing pressure of warm city streets. I remember swaying with her in place, my hand on her shoulder as she smiled and laughed at my lack of "Island rhythm" and I know she wasn't named Mary but it was still American yesterday and I remember it all in weather beaten sepia tone. I remember riding our bikes to get pizza together a group of us, trying to stay together, but not get noticed by the cops, and the weird anxious feeling of forever and fleeting that mixed together just to trouble my thoughts. We were going to be young forever and we were never ever going to die. We'd be in love forever and we'd always see eye to eye. I don't know what became of you, I hope you're well, we've reached the age where looking backs hurts me more than I know how to tell. A million years ago, yesterday, that intangible all at once way time works if viewed extrademensionally, like a helicopter taken to see our old city from above, it looks the same, but different. It's all at once and it no longer looms over you and makes you feel small and also like you belong, somewhere in all the mixed up time stream nonsense we went out of our way one Thursday to get guava and cheese empanadas from that hole in the wall place you like(d) run by that Korean guy and his Mexican wife. Your skirt never kicked up to the far away sounds our radio played, but somewhen we shared that emanada and even though it hurts and even though I'm somewhere farway from your view it was my pleasure to have been able once upon a time to dance with you.