Baby Blues

Poetry

I saw you dancing by yourself at the jukebox,

the eerie blue sheen coating your skin

in neon highlights that made you look alien,

and I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.

You swayed back and forth to the beat,

some pop singer’s take on Sinatra,

while I stayed in the shadows of the room

and waited for the right moment to pass.

Your bottle was half-empty, amber residue,

and your eyes widened a fraction to see

the unopened bottle I held in front of your face

while the singer belted out a refrain about love.

In another era, you might have smiled in a way

that welcomed me closer like a touch of a hand,

but your baby blues narrowed as if I had no right

even to offer you our world’s kind of ambrosia.

The bottle hung from the tips of my fingers

as you turned and tread back to the bar,

and with your escape I wondered just

what the hell I had even wanted from you.

Your song fell softly to a close, much like

a hand letting go of another in peace,

but you were gone, the one who got away,

and all I had was a sad story to tell.

Originally published at https://vocal.media.