streetlight and a fire

they say what’s meant for you

will return

and on a west coast airline bound for winter

years collapse to inconsequential short stories

and there at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side

I remembered

through the mist of gin

and hesitant affection

your gaze pierced clear to my soul

and I forgot to order

I cannot remember my name

at a time like this

the decade of turbulent ache

blood and fervent calls that roared in my ears

evaporating with one clandestine collision

in it’s place

your voice fills me

the steady drum of a heartbeat awakened

and calm

we were drunk among velvet cushions

and people who may or may not have noticed

that your eyes twinkled

the color that rose to my cheeks

I stopped you in your sentence

Why have you come, I say

I meant to convey severity

but I softened with your expression

the unimaginable spilling from your lips

changing everything

words that were longed for

but never allowed, never dreamed

For you.

You kissed me under dark, under trees

in the burn of the cigarettes we lit

the smoke clinging to my hair

like your hands just moments ago

your fingers woven through

wrapped around

as I am wrapped around yours

as if we never left

as if every person we had loved in between

were nothing but dreams

shadows retreating into the dark

in Central Park, where we are aglow

from the streetlight and a fire

that should have burned out long ago

My lips still burn with it

as a plane bound west carries you home

and as you disappear

I know without a shadow

but incendiary certainty

we had returned