We talked at the café
looking out into the night
sneaking serious glances
in between
playful smiles

I followed you home
and invited myself to
stay for a bit

(you didn’t seem to mind)

At your house you
finally let me in

(but only for a while)

I spied the bottle of whisky
underneath the desk in your office
way up in that lonely, messy
attic

Your books on literature
were stacked on a shelf in the corner
of your private room

(one, on sonnets, was upside down)

We went downstairs
listened to music
you made me laugh
again and again

Then I saw
your melancholy eyes
and your flushed cheeks
after I knelt down to
kiss you and
feel your warmth
against my face

Time was suspended and I
slipped farther down
into the mystery
of our tangled, temporal
connection

Seems you were
on my mind
that night and
some others

We were
lovers sometimes
enemies too

yet even in friendship
I often ached
to understand

why