Late summer
Colossal thunderstorms
Splendid burgundy crimson sunsets
Casablanca fans did little
To blunt the edge of the sweltering summer humidity

She came through the crotchety old door
Sylvia
Lightning

We talked to well into the night
The way that people sometimes do
I don't know exactly
When she realized
We had been lovers long ago
Only blocks from this very spot
She placed her hand on mine
It was just so natural for it to be there

The night passed in a moment
The sun peeking through the eastern window
A curse

"The sun is coming."
"I know, we have only moments."
"I wish . . "
"What?"
"I wish you didn't have to go."
She smiled
Kissed me
And every so gently dissolved
In the grainy light of morning

I stared down at the table
Drawing circles with my tears
The problem with demons and angels
Is all their thoughts are one thought
Same goes for ghosts I guess
We just can't seem to let go.

I dissolved
As the day shift guy pushed
through the crotchety old door

William C. Burns, Jr. (Bill) was born in Washington DC, circa the early fifties, which puts him on the trailing edge of the beautiful generation (remember the Hippies? OK for those of you too young to remember, how bout Shaggy from Scooby Doo?). Raised in West Virginia in and around the rolling hills and glens of Charleston, he moved to South Carolina in 1984 with his wife and three children.