Peter, do you recall that first glance?

It was nothing much of fancy,

A paltry church that at one time housed a sandwich shop.

Sitting neatly between rows of turn of the century houses.

You and I on the edge of holding hands,

And exchanging awkward giggles instead of dialogue.

In between rinsing brushes,

And caulking cracks in the window sill.

Peter, does the taste of bitter lemonade evoke

The time in which your thirst for me became sound

We paid no mind to those heat advisories.

Or the absence of sugar within our mouth,

As ice cubes clicked loudly against our teeth.

Cassette singles and letters each week,

Over mundane things we thought to consider.

I think of hiding the phone bills from our parents,

And smile.

I cannot find you anymore,

Except in my head, Peter.

They plucked that church down and swapped it with a parking lot.

I long to sit on its back steps one more time with you.

To feel the sweat fall from your palm,

And pore over your Andrew McCarthy blue eyes.

Schedules and abortions took you,

Along with that sandwich shop church.

The timetables were wretched and unstable.

There was nothing Del-Amitri or Bon Jovi could do for us.

Peter.