The poetry of meetings

Shanna
Your name was the bridge that brought me to you, cast by the woman asking if I was you. Illuminated by her staggered quest, through the swarm of lightly grazing and cocktailing authors, she and not-you (I) landed at your high-heeled, heart-stomping, pretty little feet.

Claire
Earphoned together in a circuit of conversation, we each spoke into our respective mics, straining under the weight of authority, you for the magazine you would soon be leaving, I misunderstood to be writing about miscarriage, and for the letter I would write the next day, assigned already to the future that had called us from nothing into this evening.

Jon
Words fluttered to our feet like petals drifting us into the breath the sky takes when the flower has gone and the leaf has yet to take its place.

Nicole
My band was opening for the band you had come to see. You were glittered and splintering light. We were in love with the wrong men, but neither of us knew it. Or we knew it, but neither was ready to admit it. We threw those pie-tins of desire with their empty cache of whipped cream, struck only bones and drove our songs north where, suddenly, the sky is blooming.

Melea
We sat next to each other that first day. Anchors. Prehistoric and ripe, in the way that all hope is obvious on the other side when the protagonist arrives. You were my midwife and I was yours. We cursed our way through those Alaskan rocks, down those Midwestern rapids, and gave ourselves to the stars that gave themselves back unstinting.

Chloe
My dog tackled your dog with the Hebrew name. Twice. We emailed about what the trainer said -- my pregnancy hormones + girl dog. Jews don't do that to Jews, I explained to the dog; but she, in her olfactory way of knowing, snorted a Madoff rebuttal and kicked up some grass. I saw you at your register at Powell's. Our parallel lives crossed; twin birthdays surfaced like leaves on water.

Christyne
What was it about you? Everything. Your shock of hair, the weight of it, the color of alarm. Every grand gesture faded to the tea cup's stain long after the thirst. The NO unspoken, honed to explosive.

Jeff
Because you could, you did. And you forgave yourself, but I couldn't. The broken promise limps along hinged, perhaps, but never healed. 

Comments

[Regina]

These are amazingly awesome... esp. loved Nicole's and Melea's... where are these from?
xo

[Sage]

Thank you, Regina! It's fun to hear which ones resonate with folks. Just wrote 'em up last night and posted them! : )

[Regina]

Oh, clever! I'll have to try something like this!
:)