We keep running into each other,
that summer after my graduation,

                                                                in rooms dimmed by the haze of
                                                                smoke and with music playing

a little too loud. I see you, and you cross
over to me, or I cross over to you, and

                                                                one of us is the lighthouse and the other is the fog.
                                                                Each time it ends the same, with us

sitting closer than we need to be, the heat
of your breath against my cheek

                                                               as we pretend to catch up. And then,
                                                               at some point when the night begins

to shift into morning, you kiss
me, my hand in your curls and

                                                               your hand on my waist. And we
                                                               smile into it, and remember back

when we first tried to be friends,
and we both laugh. The first time

                                                               it happens it’s a surprise. By the
                                                               third time it’s a habit

with an expiration date. I’m leaving
in a few weeks, and you promise

                                                               this doesn’t mean anything more
                                                               than two people finding each other

in the dark, even if I was half
in love with you a few years back,

                                                               or that you’d been in love with me right after.
                                                               And it’s funny, now, the way we’d gotten

our timing all wrong. Missed each other
like two ships who didn’t even think

                                                               to sail the same sea. Maybe if
                                                               we’d timed things better, talked

a little more, we could have had
something real. But there’s nothing

                                                               for me to grieve as you moan into my mouth
                                                               and I pull you, somehow, even closer.