For Victoria, a Friend

[Wjames]

Her first kiss was with a cigarette
singeing a hole through her shirt,
sparking a fire in the small of her back
as she rolled in a field with a boy
fumbling at the clasps of her bra,
drunk and nervous and laughing 
with their breaths forming clouds
for the moon to shine through.

She told me the story the day we met,
and I wished I was the boy 
until the day she died, and I realized 
what might have been lost.