I thought I saw you when I stepped
to the counter the third
morning in a row,
and you waved my hand ready to pay
away as you slid
the faded blue mug
towards me,
“It’s fine”
you caught my eye between the swish
of your ponytail and the glint
of gold at the rim
of your glasses
“It’s fine”
I caught on the second time,
but it wasn’t
because you were waiting in the bakery
across the street (I thought
I saw)
hair chopped short uneven as
the flustered words I offered
for a cream-filled cookie,
melting
as I left like the
“It’s fine”
I crammed into my backpack with the
crumpled bag,
I thought I saw you on the streetcar,
later,
combat boots on the seat in front
of you so that that checker
of streetcar-board was all
yours (I was bubbled
small
into my seat) and I thought
we caught each other
in the windows, looking out
to flicker in. Was it
your Dixie Chicks t-shirt that flipped
my playlist to “Cowboy
Take Me Away”? When
did the air become so full so
charged
that graphics can make music and let
us off at the same stop but heave
us apart into the night?
“It’s fine,”
I thought, because this
weekend we have arranged to meet
at that same cafe, and I
will trade my coffee
for iced tea.
You will fill me like an almond
croissant,
and then you will wash me
from your hands.
I will think
for one shy slumber party’s
worth of cider,
that I am past smiling at you at poetry
readings
then turning back to my notebook
ignoring the flicker
flicker—for one
morning of helping you name your cactus I will think I am past reading into your
“Hope to see you back soon”
like it’s the fantasy book you sold me
(you spent so long
scanning the shelves)
“New Releases”
(that’s what tripped us up),
—that I am past playing games no one
sees I am playing—
but it will turn out that helping
name house plants is not
after all
as good as a marriage.
It’s fine. If you’re reading this
and we’ve exchanged brief
smiles, someday
someday,
it will be the smile you pour like
bottomless coffee
into my over-caffeinated heart
when you come
downstairs and I say
“Honey, I’ve baked bread” and you say
“Honey, it’s six a.m.”
but the flicker of your smile lights the oven
and the coffee pot
and the electric air stops flickering holds
warm
as the summer streetcar
that rolls me into your life
(I think
I see)
Illustration by Maia Grecco
