We Must Hate Ourselves and Each Other

For Eric.

Once, we spoke without words.
The cliché of body language
became exactly as expected.
The dialogue two shapes make in silence.
On that day, you turned the radio down
to hear my hand connect with yours
and hold it tightly. A complete lack
of expectation or precedence. 
The me-you story problem. 
If two trains are traveling towards each other
at the same speed on a cloudless blue day
how many bystanders will die?
 
I was never very good at math
but I can count the casualties on my fingers.
 
These days, we waste our young brilliance
sitting on piers and listening to seagulls.
You tell me that this could be the ocean.
We could be in a movie. That makes us
equally uncomfortable. It’s warm for June
and freshwater does not breed barnacles
so the wooden pilings burst from the waves"
clean. 
 
Back in time, back in your car,
you were lost somewhere in the haze
of smoke and fogged contact lenses. 
You asked me to read the poems I wrote you.
 
I take too many artistic liberties to enjoy
showing people poems about them. 
I dread the fact they know the things
that never really happened. You heard 
every poem despite their lies.
We will never be strangers again
and that is heavy and cold to the touch.
Friday, there will be a party at a mutual friend’s.
He will ignorantly introduce us anyway.