Forever in Blue Jeans

At the bus stop – see a girl in a doorway;
mobile phone to ear. She’d be fifteen,
sixteen at a pinch. It’s literally freezing;
a cruel east wind, but she is dressed
in next to nothing. Tight, short-sleeved top,
bare midriff, skinny jeans; when you’re young
you don’t notice the cold. Take my one;
fifteen, going on twenty five, and boy-crazy!
She’d walk on hot coals to turn the right heads.
A nightmare for me, but it’s a ‘fait accompli’.

‘Love makes the world go round’, they say,
and I was the same, at her age. Time may clip
our wings, but youth’s a bird won’t accept
the sky’s the limit, as it soars to dizzy heights.
Being older and apparently wiser, isn’t all
it’s cracked up to be; life gets lonely, at times.
Then my bus comes along. As it pulls away
I watch her walk off down the street; wipes
her cheek with the back of her hand – the first
snow of winter stinging her eyes.