When we were kids.

Remember when we were just kids?
 
Might we return to one of those old days,
during the spring of our lives?
 
I know our bodies have grown, matured
it's now the winter of those same lives,
but there was a conversation I want to replay.
 
It was out behind the shed,
under the lilac in spring,
with the warm afternoon sun,
encouraging us to lay side-by-side.
 
We talked of important things;
What purple smelled like.
What color warm was.
How friendship felt.
What that thing called love was all about.
 
That was the spring when you looked at me and ask  
what made me a boy, different from you, a girl.
 
I looked back at you and said something about
you wearing different clothing that I did
but that I didn't know why.
 
You wondered if we traded clothes,
would that mean I would then be a girl and you a boy.
 
We decided to try that.
All we had to trade was shirts, pants, and underwear.
We stood face to face and began to undress.
 
There was no shyness between friends.
 
We unbuttoned, button for button, and our shirts were off.
Then pants, except, I remember I had a snap and zipper and yours just pulled down.
It was under our underwear that we first saw the difference.
 
I saw that you were missing some parts that I had.
You saw that I had extra parts.
 
We sat down to talk about the differences we had seen.
 
You ask to look closer and I said sure, go ahead.
 
You ask could you touch and I said ok, if  you want.
 
You ask did I want to look closer and I said sure, if it was ok.
 
And I ask, could I touch and you said ok.
 
After a while we got tired of looking and touching and got dressed again.
 
Funny thing was, we put our own clothes back on.
It didn't seem right to trade clothes any more.
 
All that summer we talked, and looked, and touched.
And we watch the big kids, especially down at the swimming pool.
 
I ask about the big girls and their big boobs.
You ask about why the big boys' parts got bigger around the big girls.
 
Your mom told you that you would get bigger as you grew up.
My dad said the samething to me.
 
We never did get it all figured out.
 
Then that September you moved away.
 
And now, after all these years,
we meet here in the lobby of this resort.
 
We wouldn't have recognized each other
if you hadn't heard the clerk refer to me by name
and where I was from.
 
What I want to know is,
do you remember that summer?
 
I know it is winter now,
Could we pretend that the sun coming in the window in my room
is like the sun under the lilacs then?
 
After all of these years,
I would still like to know,
what you think --
purple smells like,
and what color warm is.
 
When you left I learned what the absence of friendship felt like.
 
Over the years, remembering you, I think I know what love is about.
 
And, if you've grown the same,
(the look in you eyes says you have)
then I have one more thing to say ---
 
Along with the looking and touching,
Might I add --
I'll let you play with mine,
if you let me play with yours.