Streetlight

Leaving home was easier
than getting home to leave her.
The memories hung around like a thick fog
permeating her eyes and hair and skin.
Too naive to understand, too soiled
to forget, she'd never forget haunted green eyes
and his hands--both hot and cold
that pressed in hard at the corners of her mind
and in the night she longed only
to reach the lonely gleam of the streetlight.

Author notes

I used the line, "too young to know she was beginining to learn" by John Updike and "I was hoping to be happy by seventeen by Gary Soto as springboards along with original lines of my own. This poem was an exercise for poetry class.