You know, selfies aren’t for us.
We’re old, but I grow younger
instantly when I run into you.
We stop and share tea
at The Campus Cafe
as if you and I were still professors
sharing notes on Lady
Chatterley’s Lover.
There are moments
even now when I want to leap
across the table
and wrestle you under it,
honeymooners again,
love’s hopes spilling
from your blouse
like unloosed breasts.
Instead I sip a dark tea
while you speak of the kids,
who like shingles
during a tornado
have fled—in all directions.
Now there’s just us.
Not really. Still, we share
the same neighborhood
but not the same way
we often shared an umbrella
when we dated, waiting for taxis late
at night, rain dripping
light from its edges
into the patina of puddles.
Everything in those evenings
was lacquered
as if the rain had polished
the world with its silky
hands. Now you listen
to me as if you were a doctor
noting a patient’s ills,
nodding sympathetically,
and when we get up
to leave I finally get
to embrace you, your warmth
filling me like a warm
Irish ale, driving
the season’s cold from my body.
Regret’s the one prescription
you always hand me
before I walk away.
I will fill it again and again
the rest of my life.
