In the Moment of Being Nostalgic for a Past that Didn’t Happen

Todd Heldt

She kisses me beside the Chicago River
on our lunch break
                                          and no one can know
this plaque commemorates
the Eastland Disaster
I am wishing I knew her when I was young
and lonely so I could unbutton her buttons
and play with her hair
for more of my time on earth
I want us drinking iced coffee
thrifting and making out
in all of my memory’s alleys
             she would have hated me
when I was 18
                          stupid and drunk
and she was starting her high school’s ecology club
but look who we are
now that our lunch hour is over
                          in this present-tense buzz
I’m wishing my fingers could reach
beyond this buttoned button
like the second hand
tripping its marks on the clock
and we have a meeting we
                          must get to right now
but I am kissing her lips
right next to this ancient shipwreck
and trembling where
two thousand died
cramming decades
into seconds
everything is us,
dreaming all time is now.

Todd Heldt is a librarian in Chicago.

Art: Margo Hoover is an artist and teacher based in Oakland. She paints with bright colors that combine personal symbolism with religious and mystic iconography. You can learn more about her work at margoisbusy.art