A Girl I Never Knew

A highlight in a faded memory. Winner of Shadows & Light Poetry Contest, June 2020.

A Girl I Never Knew

I don’t remember the girl,
having met her only once,
and I don’t recall the why
or wherefore; merely
that we spent an evening
together. It might have been
a movie, most likely with
a group of friends for
how else would we be there?
Her name has flown
with the years (fifty of them),
but I’d guess at Pam,
and she may have been blonde,
unless those are later
inventions. What I do know
is that she had a gap between her teeth,
the two front ones, at the top,
and that I’m certain of.
The gap fascinated me
for she showed it off
at every opportunity,
unselfconscious and, perhaps,
aware of how it attracted males.
Or maybe it was innocence,
we were both young enough for that;
it’s hard to say since she has long faded
into the intervening years.
But this I know, I’ll never forget
that gap between those perfect teeth,
the flaw that lives forever in my mind
so that all else is gone.


Line Count: 31
Free Verse
For no other reason than the gap nudged my memory. But now entered into Shadows & Light Poetry Contest.