marcescence

The way you look at me

out of crinkling, laughing eyes

when no one else gets my awkward joke,

and the way you ask me a question,

watching me, like you’re wanting

not just what I say, but how I say it,

and the way you angle your body toward me

but – is it just me? – leave purposeful intervals

between your glances my way,

they remind me of someone.

Of something.

I remember someone else

looking, the same way, out of laughter-crinkled eyes

full of surprised communing delight

at the jokes no one else seemed to get,

and watching intently for

the answers behind the answers,

and pretending mind wasn’t

as magnetized as live-wire body,

leaving purposeful intervals between glances.

I remember the someone

I used to be.

I remember

the way I want to look at you now

with the same eyescrinklednosecrinkledfacecrinkled laugh –

forget smile lines, how could exuberance ever make me old? –

that I used to have,

I remember

the way I want to ask you questions beyond questions,

want you to ask them back,

I remember

the way this magnet in me

is throwing off my own compass

while I resist it with futile countdowns between glances.

I remember
this girl I thought was gone. 

When our eyes meet, it reminds me

of something I forgot,

and our laughter feels – startlingly –

like hope.