Poem: 'Jakob'

Innocuous halls of a candy store:
glass, safety, sweetness all around —
somewhere in københavn,
but it could have been anywhere,
my lovely dane,
anywhere,
with the same saccharine, sick smell,
but here his hand was somewhere,
counting change in my hand —
really, with no meaning at all —
just to count change. Softness on softness.

I felt his touch, slightly, a brush
and his name tag remarked
‘You’re from abroad?’ —

for a moment only us,

a caress; it was only us:
‘Yes, I’m from abroad,’ then a laugh, a smile.

I wanted his touch; though, I only grinned
And Jakob smiled back,
Then, gone,
I kept rushing and swinging, relishing and imagining;
I kept breathing, He: continuing, space lengthening
into an ephemeral distancing then gone
into banal innocuity: a saccharine sweet smelling calm forgetfulness

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