Eyes meet
(guiltily, over an empty jar of Nutella)

A typewriter sounds in the
background
serene, with a high gloss finish.

It types
enormous, evocative memories
small, intense bursts of nostalgia
in broken down bits.

Mint on a mango tree,
and peeking at the sun through a
thunderstorm
feels like a balloon expanding in the cracks of my chest,
infused with something ridiculous.
Like Hope.

Tea and dark chocolate at six a.m.
precedes
seeing a sun or
drawing a sun;
making a large, assertive circle
with smeared yellow ink blots
and certainty.

Twilight comes,
winding around a lake alone.
A toe hesitates in the water
waiting for the dragonflies with clipped wings
who pant in muffled air.

In that brief moment when I’m
wishing that this
old swing would
plummet higher,
the chain (rusty with white paint flaking off)
pulls taut with practiced simplicity,
asking me to fall or to fly.

But I stay here, impulsively.