In the warmth of your basement
We sat under sweaters and blankets
Kissing when we hit writer's block
And eventually
Writing over one another
In a startlingly permanent way

For the rest of the evening
We didn't say very much at all;
We just let the moment sink in
Under our skins
Manifesting itself
In the shivery feeling you get
When a hand
Almost touches yours

When I'm driving,
Too often lately,
I've been sitting in the passenger seat

A whirlwind mosaic
Of all the parts
So impossible to relate
Flies by beyond my windshield;
A visual symphony in tune
To all the music I love-
To all the songs you hated

I've looked forward
To this time of year-
The start of a winter
Threatening persistance,
The rain changing to sleet...
Even the freedom to leave the windows up
And the reminder of you in every breath
For months

Perhaps I just need
To sit in the driver's seat next time
(Or any time)
And begin stringing my mosaic together
So that maybe
Spring will come quickly this year

Sitting on a rock
In the middle of a little pond
With a girl I met just once before,
I looked at the treetops
(All ash trees;
All ash soon)
And thought about kissing

But the weight
Of all the lips I’d kissed before
Kept my mouth from hers;
Kept ‘her’
From becoming ‘you’

And as the first drops of rain
Began to fall like thunder
And I fled that little swamp,
Leaving the almost ash
Ash trees behind,
I felt a twinge of sadness
Despite my better judgment
And I thought
More about kissing

Tripping on acid the other night
And staring at the clouds, the trees
I realized that I just wanted
To be seeing the trees as they were
Rather than as a shifting pattern
Synthesized in a lab somewhere
To separate fully
What is seen what is there

And after the day was done
And I climbed in to my bed,
Realizing that it no longer smelled
As much like trees as it did
Sweat, *****, and smoke,
It took me quite a while
To fully fall asleep

In the bagel shop
By the Barnes and Nobel
In that corner of the shopping center
That's barely winter walking distance
From the hallway in the high school
Where we first met and first kissed,
We shared the warmth
Of an electronic fireplace
And the pages of the ****** books
We were both racing to write;
The ****** books which would very soon
Be written over with permanence
In new handwriting

I remember playing the ukulele
A year ago
With you in my living room,
My fingers showing yours
The chords you still had to learn
(A perfect excuse
To hold your hand)

Sunlight pouring,
As the rain does now,
Through the windows
Illuminated
The carefully moving corners
Of your lips
(An imperfect
Yet somehow reasonable excuse
To kiss them).

This morning
As our noses pressed together
And our breathing intermingled
In the bed where I lost my virginity
To the girl
Who taught me those same chords
(To the girl whose lips
Mine found an imperfect excuse to kiss
This afternoon),
I wished that I still had chords
To teach you;
I wished that the sun
Would shine through the rain

"Hello Olivia,"
My fountain pen
Drunkenly demonstrated
In my dad's kitchen,
Which the girl who sat
Behind me in math class,
Carefully collecting lists
Of favorite words
(Penultimate; ephemeral),
Cautiously observed
Was not my kitchen too