When we first met, there was a café
Down the block from your building where I’d
Wait for you, drink coffee, then drink more,
And try to understand what love meant,
What we wanted when we kissed and held
Each other beneath the quilt in your
Bedroom, the light from the street slipping
Between your curtains, and our faces
Slowly growing visible, outlined
By pillows and desire. I’d drift off
Thinking about it, your white shoulder
Illuminated for a second
By that line of dim light, my lips pressed
Hard against your back. What I wanted
Then I couldn’t name, and I still can’t
Name. Desire is always incomplete—
It can’t be satisfied by skin pressed
To skin, by the body’s exhaustion.
I wanted to make you part of me,
Be part of you as well. I wanted
To disappear in you, utterly,
Then return as someone different,
Changed by you in a way I couldn’t
Change myself, become someone unknown
To me. Our lives before unravel,
A ball of string in a labyrinth,
A flash of light crossing the night sky.
They’re of no help to us. Whoever
We were with other people is not
Who we are now, knowing that hearts stop,
That bodies grow cold, insensible,
That we have this time and no other.
Or maybe we’ve been changed by desire
Itself, maybe desire is its own
Object, something we can’t express but
Can become. Tomorrow night, I’ll grill
Some fish and potatoes and green beans.
I’ll pick you up at the train station,
And I’ll sit in the car the way I
Used to sit in that café, thinking
About words we say to each other,
The warmth of your hand against my cheek.
Published in ONE ART: a journal of poetry, June 14, 2026.