two months

What if we never

met

With a glancing flash of a camera lens,

basil stems seeped in the aroma of

finely minced coffee grounds

handpicked by unenslaved hands

in Ethiopian pastures or

watched

raging colors, vibrant in hue

warriors who flew 

as if on invisible strings

steeped in the unconscious laws

of five-thousand years of history?

talked

about the luggage we dragged around

found and given to us by generations of a war-torn people

and past tapestries we weaved into our own

pulsing threads fated,

dated

those vices and success driven goals

roles our parents made us, or we found on our own

in a place where we were never measured, 

compared, weighted,

so that when we

kissed

unexpectedly on cotton sheets

my hand slipping from your high-rise cheekbones

my trembling lips could ask

what if we never

separated