Note: I didn’t meet Tim until 1996, but looking at his photo album from the D.C. years makes me think I’ve always known him and Sheila, even though I was nineteen and living in E. Lansing in 1992.
Sheila on the beach in a bikini,
legs stretched out on a blanket
like some languid goddess of Silver Spring, MD.
Her feet jeweled with ocean sand.
Each foot, each toe—
pointing toward the Atlantic.
Tim drinking a Coke
in front of a mirror.
He’s wearing The Smiths
The Queen is Dead shirt.
This was the uniform
in 1992:
jeans, Army surplus boots,
and an 80s post-punk band tee.
Sheila leaning against a car
in the diffuse parking lot light
after a concert.
The car smelling like leftover cigarettes
and beer and the laundry of young kids
sharing their first apartment.
Tim growing a moustache.
Sheila in a goofy hat.
Their friend, Blake,
wearing Joy Division’s
Love Will Tear Us Apart shirt.
Incense smoke
rises above someone’s rook
on a chess set.
Tim goes underground
to meet Sheila,
rides the Metro:
red line, blue line,
surfacing at Union Station.
As though stepping between
two worlds was as easy
as dropping a token
into a slot and
pushing the turnstile open
with your hip.
It’s 1992
and I don’t want any of us
to get one day older.
About Heather Abner:
Heather Abner is a librarian with punk rock roots. She lives in the Rust Belt of Michigan with her husband, Critter, and two Miniature Schnauzers, Diesel and Brizo. She holds a MFA from the University of Michigan and a MLIS from Wayne State University. She often dreams of punk music and poetry while sitting at the reference desk.
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