For An Old Flame Poem by Leo Yankevich

Do you recall how I would buy champagne
with subway tokens at the Benson store,
then lick it all up from your northern breast?
            You still wore boots from Bialystok

and I would hold your bag in sun and rain.
Do you recall your mattress on the floor,
how we would suck and f uck and never rest,
            explore Manhattan, and then talk

our way down Clinton street in funny rags?
It was four in the afternoon, my pocket
full of dreams you'd never tread on, love.
            I'd go back home, no longer vagrant,

listen to Cohen, look through plastic bags,
makeshift curtains, out at sunlight, locket
of your hair in my eyes, your smell above
            my grateful lips still warm and fragrant.