intimacy comes and goes
like flashes.
silverware;
always with us no matter
what cities we’re living in
restaurants, diners, cafes,
strange houses
where I’ve taken strange meals,
the fork I’m eating pasta with
never changes
and the spoon I stir my
coffee with could be the same…
so, after all,
you are here.

intimacy comes and goes
lightly, like flashes.
tableware cleared away
replaced with clean
new forks and knives,
where, even though your sleeve
is not brushing mine,
even though I can’t quite
sense the damp smell of you
after a morning shower,
eating eggs and buttering toast,
a fork is still a fork
a knife still there to remind
me that what has been cut
can be cut
and cut
again in as many different
shapes as I can imagine—
and, after all,
you are here;
in the metallic click
against my teeth
bitter and
sweet
through cold and
heat
in a meal I once cooked for you.