Heart Enough

I saw a woman drawn
with negative space
on the red bathroom stall
scraped into the metal
with black pen.

She levitated there all torso
no face or limbs or clothes,
but a squiggle of dark
at the nadir of her crotch
and some carefully cut shadows
placed with care
at the curves of her waist.

I sat there as a child
and did not understand
what my eyes soaked in
but I studied close
the breasts that seemed
so heavy in their redness
on the cold door.

Such an illusion
floats across
the iris of my mind
even so far in the future
while I wait here
in my rusted car
for the train
to drag its heavy freight
away from me.

Half the lights burn out
on the Ferris wheel,
and tides of people
slide to the back corner
of the parking lot,
where the fireworks
stand apart from all the stars.

The last girl who
caught a glimpse of me
at a party
I paced the edges of
laughed like branches
in the wind
at some dumb joke I told
while making
my way out of there.

She said she never got the chance
to really talk with me,
but I kept leaving knowing
deep down I’d give anything
for heart enough to stay.