Within a few words, I placed the accent,
the telltale rhythm and cadence
of a homeland no longer my home.
The darkness, too, I placed – les noir – the eyes, skin,
what my grandmother called her Gypsy blood,
darkness of whole peoples seeping through
the unapologetic smile
the weary sigh.
Treble resting atop bass notes,
the music of his
laughter lilting upward
composing a song none here sing.
It was your laugh.
It was like having our late-night conversation –
the leaves of the deep-rooted tree
creating a soft and private darkness
that I longed for
when the moon crept higher
and illuminated us,
our bodies having crept closer.
Our stories, new to one another,
Creating the profound intimacy possible only between strangers.
The sweet juxtaposition
of the never-before space between our bodies
and the ease and slide into a timeless rhythm
that was our song, had always been our song,
it just hadn’t played before.
The comfort between us belied how little we knew each other.
The charge of attraction danced in the moonlight.
The same moon that rises every night,
for all inhabitants of the planet,
that had risen both our lifetimes before we met,
that rises still, although we no longer see it together.
Tonight I heard your song,
summoned like we used to
with a Ouija board
the planchette moving haltingly from letter to letter
willed to spell out the name
the way you willed my hands from your shoulders to your back to your neck to the place where your hair brushed your shirt collar as you leaned your head back into my touch.
He became the medium, allowing the passage between two worlds –
the world of something past,
the world I wake to every day,
every day one day further from the time
that was our time.
Moonlight is moonlight, wherever it falls.
Once it fell on us.