Beautiful, I thought her,
meeting only by way of
insistence—I dialed all
the phone book entries
for her half-known name.
But I always recall her as
she was before I met her:
sixteen years old, emerging
from a darkroom, all ageless eyes
and braless unrelenting sweaters.
We met over burnt-sugar coffee
in a doughnut shop, and amidst the
everything mediocre, our minds flit
together like synergetic birds, her thick
dark hair lolling above her paper cup,
black mirror. She taught me
how to sip at things too hot
to swallow, to love, and to
suspect. Inseparable for a time,
we were eventually divided by
language: I loved it, and she
used it. In retrospect, I can
no longer tell the difference.