"Younger" by Catherine Walshak

We chased each other in the alley
when the work day was done, and
marveled at the purple sky bleeding
behind church steeples.
 
We checked our horoscopes for
suggestions, checked our bank accounts
seldom. We wrote lists of
places to see,
things to do,
people to be.
 
We drank red wine to feel old pain,
pledged silently to stop picking at heartscabs.
 
We tucked dreams away into coat pockets,
for another time,
another year.
 
In 19A on a 6:40 flight,
I reach out of airplane windows,
map runway lights
into starpaths,
hungry for answers.
 
I halt the blood-orange sun
as it dips behind clouds, dark and wispy,
and melts over the James.
 
We are dying
to be younger
still.

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C.B. Walshak is a Virginia-born writer, whose work has been published on Leopardskin & Limes, Q/A Poetry, and in Pamplemousse. She lives with her husband in Charlottesville, VA where she is currently working on her debut novel and pursuing a Masters in English.

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