In Corridors Of Time

When you leaned over and touched me on the arm
it was as if my arm needed to be touched
in that way, at exactly that time.
- Edward Hirsch

Everything was deceptively simple. You took a bottle of beer and waved me over. I believe it was The Simpsons that got us going. I remember touching your shirt. I thought I was being very clever. I didn't recognize the evening as a precursor to anything. The hours were there anyway, factual and artless. I was thinking of tom-toms chanting through the jungle, an arrow whistling its passage through the trees. I was thinking of how dizzy I was. In my mind, your face and the streetlamps and the chuckling moon were all one and the same.

Even if I'd consulted a colony of fortune-tellers, none of them would have guessed.

I did not think the evening as a precursor to anything. The hours were there anyway, factual and artless.

I thought you had the loveliest hands I'd ever seen. I panicked when you smiled. I wanted to know what was happening, but the hours were greedy with their secret. They just wouldn't let on.

I would like to say something about gratitude or redemption. I want to be fluid with expression, I want the words to calve precisely from the hulking, speechless concept.

I don't think I'm very successful at it. Also:

I don't know of a story more beautiful than ours.

Hi, Jose.