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May 2014
She was fetching at Nineteen,
with her dark eyes of mystery.
Her composed, secretive demeanor.
She exuded the promise of exotic sexuality,
all without much real experience.

I was Twenty Two, older in
many ways than she.
I took her to her first Night Club,
Deep into those Disco Days.
No one carded anyone back then.

She was like a Deer on a road,
caught in the Headlamps of
a oncoming car.
Dazzled in a world she did not know.
A player on a artificial stage.
Several times that night
I saw it happen.
Her eyes meeting and locking on
to some cheesy Saturday Night
Fever Guy clad in garish Polyester,
Soaked in dance sweat,
a club Dennison of no real merit.
Her eyes said it all in a lingering glance.
It told her story and set the tone for the
rest of her life and a list of failed couplings.  

It took ten long years and a child born
for me to fully comprehend what those
looks that night really meant.
To then finely extricate my son and I from her.
And sadly too I learned, that some people
will never know or understand what Love means.
Or perhaps deserve it in return.
This is for my son, none of our mistakes or human
failings as parents were ever your fault.

It is 36 years since our final parting. She remains
bitter to this day. I hold no malice towards her.
I have only empathy for her loss and failures.
Her empty self imposed aloneness and being
no more than a stranger to our son. And our
Grandchildren of whom she knows nothing.
Written by
Stephen E Yocum  M/North Western Oregon
(M/North Western Oregon)   
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