You & me & them

In October, I wrote for you
outward toward them

I didn’t know their faces
I just thought we needed to talk
I was asking them to listen because

you had

perhaps without even meaning to

shown me a way to look at the world
as if it contained some measure of sense:

tilt your head this way,
slowly close your eyes

while you look at the cityscape

(the motion of a head turning

to receive a kiss on a balcony

that balcony where we spoke and kissed

out loud until I was sure we were born

in a truer version of Hollywood

and, then, until I learned we weren’t)

How terribly insular I must have grown
those months after

when
Colorado was burning down this summer
one of the truest things you said to me was
“your poetry is so much better when you’re happy”

and I think I know the reason now

on these bright days when the whole world
is squinting in the sun and trying
not to sweat through their clothes

there are moments when I still feel
like, them and I, we need to talk

when it becomes obvious
that everyone must need everything
just the way that we did.