Us.
A sideways look during breakfast in the park
Pierces our companionable chatter with mischief
And I leap into action then and there,
Erupting with you into a laughter so long and so loud
That it promises to never give us up.
My hands seek your body—
Not after the manner of lovers
Or even in the fledgling stages of a crush,
But as one who teases and provokes
A friend into cries of mirth.
Exploiting your weakness for my touch,
I bring you slowly to the grass
Where our laughter dies out
And you lay on your back, staring up breathlessly,
Not at heaven but at me,
Eyes alight with a barely perceptible question:
What happens next?
I am on you now, soul upon soul,
And the moment seems to last so much longer
Than the ones preceding it:
Our eyes locked, yours curious, mine unsure…
What happens next?
It becomes, then, not a moment of a boy and a girl in a park
But of you and me and nothing else—no breakfast,
No park, no younger siblings, and no friendship to hold us back.
In my mind,
I take your lips as the prize
For having bested you in our game
And we melt together,
One in a way I’d never considered—our
Hearts threatening to burst, our
Lips quivering with a passion theretofore unspoken, our
Souls reverberating, rebounding off each other sloppily then
Settling together in complete union of
Spirit and emotion.
In my mind, the moment grows to define us
As belonging to one another.
But in the park,
I simply smile and hold back
The sudden flood of feeling with a dam of reason
Detailing the inconveniences and illogic of
Such audacious action toward one
Who I could never, I tell myself, truly love.
I laugh and apologize lightly, not meaning a word
That leaves my mouth, ignoring our shared disappointment
As I get off you to help you up.
Our moment passed never to be revisited
Save in nostalgia or regret
For we never learned
What might have become of
Us.
(2014)
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