Just Out Of Reach

Just Out Of Reach

Our entire school
fell in love.
Grade 5 were the Jets.
The leader of the Grade 6 Sharks
had dark hair
and piercing dark eyes.
I sang the movie songs
to him but really only
to myself in the mirror
without breathing
lest my parents
hear and ask
why my mouth
kept twisting.

Not possible,
for smart girl,
special gifted class,
to talk to the hood.

In college,
the movie still
in my head,
I danced it
on the bar table
for him
wherever he was.

Then I heard Robert
ended up in prison.

I knew I would
never find out,
but kept hoping -
as I took English 279,
The Brontes,
and wrote about Heathcliff,
of whom my professor deeply
disapproved -

that he'd escaped.