Anne Judy Godwin Poem II
Anne Judy Godwin Poem II
odd times
like the way a sunbeam hits a car’s chrome
I remember Anne “Judy” Godwin
who I met
Ocean City, MD, 1961
the evening ocean graying
and then the color deepening with the sky’s embrace of night
when stars appear
even in a place sprayed with the scent of the sea
the sparkles somehow climb through the veils
she was such a beauty
pale skin
hardly a bathing beauty shimmering in well-oiled tan
no, she was a perfume of the night
lilac maybe?
faint freckles on that pale skin
light blue eyeshadow
a beige sweater swelling with femininity
tight white slacks
oh, the curves
you’d get arrested today even entertaining such thoughts
but
an adolescent has the right to sexual frustration
there is the promise
nebulous as a distant galaxy as it is
of fulfillment
of a dive into the waves of passion
of an embrace, a kiss
so wet and wonderful like the sea
of the tympanums of pleasure rocking
through her and you
(the future her as vague at that age
as a cardboard silhouette)
Who knows what she was like
a bud just flowering
her voice quiet
I think of her like a purring kitten
but she might have been a hisser
a scratcher
as selfish and as vulnerable as me
but I’d be shocked
knocked off my feet into a cold ocean
if I had the slightest effect on her life
I was a grain of sand in her eye once
if there was a tear it was a physical irritation
not emotional
splutter
She was my poem
I was to her
a word unheard in the wind
Dan Cuddy is currently an editor of the Loch Raven Review and in the past has been a contributing editor with the Maryland Poetry Review, and with Lite: Baltimore’s Literary Newspaper. He has been published in many small magazines over the years, e.g. NEBO, Antioch Review, Connecticut River Review and online at Praxilla, The Potomac, and L‘Allure des Mots. His book of poems “Handprint On The Window” was published by Three Conditions Press