Cold Wind

 Mary called. The rabbit died.
 She was too upset, she said.
 So the boy rolled over and lit a cigarette
 and promised her he'd be there in a while.
 The apartment floor chilled his feet
 as he tight-roped to the shower.
 The sun was up but it wasn't late. He dressed
 and tucked a dollar into his pocket.

 It was winter and his mind withdrew
 with other things, less important then.
 Perhaps if it were the summer it would have been
 different, but the crisp morning wind 
 snapped him straight up and 
 slapped him onto the sidewalk. 
 Cut right through his jacket.
 It was a long walk,
 and it felt like death with every step.

 They spoke in hushed voices like conspirators,
 as this was how they had always played:
 pretending they were something pure,
 believing they would seem older, more mature,
 more loving, more passionate, more experienced,
 more enticing than they really were.
 Perhaps it was only a mumble,
 but it reassured them.

 With dimes and quarters and
 some borrowed baggage, a good friend's name
 Back Bay they came. He held her arm
 and walked her down sad alleys.
 She smiled and seemed so brave. It was new,
 she said, and she loved new things.
 A bus station and an age away
 the arrangements were engaged.

 But it was the hemorrhaging, the doctor would plead,
 the hemorrhaging that did not stop,
 that conspired with fate, and a young girl struggled
 for a final gasp on a bloodied bench.
 The boy saw the frigid chill in her ice blue eyes,
 and the doctor nervously wrung his insensitive fingers dry. 
 The trick was played. The game was over.
 And outside the cold wind would wait.