photograph / movie night

for y. 

I only want to remember through green glass, uncut 

hair trembling under neon lights, pupils engorged 

with refraction or regret, bossa nova, midsummer, 

sunflowers. In the warm evening, we giggled 

through the garbage sequel of a perfectly good film. 

I wanted to cry when it was over; that’s how bad it was. 

I only want to remember in transience because 

the single worthwhile souvenir d’enfance is a hunger-

splashed photograph of a seaside sunset. In the shot, 

contrails congeal in waxy streaks on a suffocating sky 

& the cove is a bruised fist losing its grip. The waves 

shriek the riff from Starless. You ask what it’s like 

to miss you & I say warm, pungent kombucha. I catch 

a broken cowrie shell at the edge of the frame & extort 

from its dust a metaphor for moving on. It’s September 

again, which means the salt-laced breeze smells like 

forgiveness & that I am in the mood for it, too. Maybe 

tomorrow, the rain will force me into a sandy coffee shop, 

Paul Anka crooning The Cure on the radio. Queueing 

next to me, you’ll ask why they turned The Lovecats 

into swung jazz and I’ll pretend not to notice that 

his cover cuts my favorite line—we missed you, hissed 

or we missed, you hissed. I’ll fall freely into you 

& laugh at your vulgarities because everything 

looks warm tinted emerald with longing. Maybe 

tomorrow, I will not need this aubade.