Such exacting words:

One exchange on a grey bittersweet day, things we.

Love comes at inconvenient times.

We - we forge our alliance; share our secrets.

This our solemn bond.

We partake of temptation, teach tasting the ripeness of fresh fallen fruit.

Yet we draw our line in the sand.

One can only travel so far down that path

before the ordinary, every-day intervenes; life’s slippery ethics.

You – we are each of us such grace in this.

So honest, so beautiful, so sweet, so everything, you say.

So gentle are the words we use, reassuring.

We wrap our tongues around each serifed letter,

slowly parse the distance so tentatively and in this way

we greet with a different kind of kiss.

All last night, I dreamt of loss and sorrow

and in this blood-wracking, fist-wrenching dream I awoke –

3:30 a.m. – my face tear wet salt, a glistening waxing moon in the dark.

I tell you – 3:30 a.m. – the tears – the dream.

You tell me, It’s eerie, almost psychic, I believe…

3:30 I awoke – I never do that. Something wrong… insects… an itch I could not scratch.

We may not be in any conventional way but this gentle coincidence

perhaps – perhaps this 3:30 this morning, we both missed and yet were together.

We missed the almost of the almost. I knew that then.

The moment is scented. The moment is soft;

amber, Episcopal frankincense ~

the thurible that swings, the scented smoke awakens two,

wholly holy innocent bittersweet and sacred.