Young Writers Society

15. short and so so sweet

out of ten years,
we spent half an hour in a cafe
without buying a drink,
passing the necessary questions like
what is your job and address
and when are you going to become an adult --
half an hour

and i fled in an Uber to my next engagement
in the midst of a week with every minute scheduled
before a plane back to across the world,

but what is it that makes me still think of you
every April, when i open my heart back up to
holding each fallen petal and considering
which rays of sunshine wove it and
which rays it sent on its way?

16. new topics we could never think of before

Husband and wife at night at a table
they perused and picked out together
on a past hot summer day when the store was so deathly cool
it gave him goosebumps to be standing there.

The man who had been selling looked as if
he had been in this town his whole life
and this store his whole life, and in the back room
was the grandpa recliner, remote, and TV, and a sweet tinkling
of lemonade spoons in a glass from his wife,
who had certainly chosen the table by herself.

He passes the pepper at night.
She passes the salt at night.

He is pretending to look at his phone,
but there is nothing interesting anymore,
and instead he is back in elementary school
with friends who would die for him, jump off the third floor for him,
and he is wondering what they would say now.

She is pretending to look at her phone, too.

17. flicker

we almost dare to keep staring
across the campfire in the dark
but the possibility of entwined eternity
burns hotter than coals and lifted ash,
and so we look back into the settling night.