Nightly Beat poetry, or, The Key

I was writing Beat poetry

about San Francisco...

its rain, 

         its fog,

                 its ocean beaches,

and a girl who once 

           gave me the key to her heart.

We were there where old highway 1

is just aging cracked asphalt,

jutting out of the seaward cliff

as it breaks and tumbles onto shores below.

We stood there on the beach 

and you found a plastic yellow key 

that you said fit your heart.

You gave it to me.

It was the size of my hand, 

and I kept it around my neck 

on an old cotton string.

I kept it around my neck

for the rest of my innocent youth.

Of all our stages,

  Innocence burns most briefly.

And, by the time I understood

the meaning 

of such worldly things 

as Love,

              I couldn't remember

                                               where the girl had gone to

nor what I had done with the key.