Short stories about our meetings; what I remember.

#1
the folder entitled “yellow” that contained one item: the word yellow.
sand—the second coming.
a blue heron at Limantour.
our buried feet.

no awkwardness between us.
sand in the bed.

the way your words spilled out between the spaces in your teeth when you talked and smiled at the same time
and the sound–I liked the sound.

a boy.
G-d in your grandmother’s letters.
a man.

the perception of your rhythm.
the taste of myself on your tongue.
feeling my own resistance.
not sensing yours.

#2
how good-looking you’d become.
cassette tapes—their incidence rather than their songs.
your boxes, not their labels.
celadon cigarettes and your mistrusting the word.
your bike a self-portrait.
an absence of fresh air.

the compost—it was pivotal.
your grooming and how it gave length to your face.
your 4th grade teacher (Mr. Walton?), his ponytail and Alfred’s Birds.
your steady persuasion
—my resistance
my brown skirt notwithstanding.

Haile Selassie’s speech on the turntable.
the redundancy of coffee
–and most of my stories.
digesting the shape and weight of your masculinity
and one slice of Zachary’s pizza for two days (at least).
a desire to nestle your habits against the contours of my own.
the range of your rhythm.
Suzanne’s prose heavy with the moisture of fog in the hills.
Ian’s clouds that came in a box individually wrapped
waiting for a (borrowed) reply.