POEM - Retro Nexus

Two kids, standing together

at the Fort Worth Zoo

with their faces awe-pressed

against the glass;

complete strangers outside

of that moment

  

The same kids, accidentally brushing hands

as they reached for rain-sticks

inside a Natural Wonders store;

foreign for not remembering

where they’d seen each other before

  

Sitting next to each other in a ‘90s theater,

seeking escapism from what our fathers

had done to our mothers;

not yet brave enough to so much as

steal a glance at one another’s

choice in snack food

  

Taking turns, falling into Lake Ray

after flying over that sketchy ledge;

genuinely unaware of our separate selves

beyond the subconscious notation

of how our combined voices complimented

those memorable seconds spent

in splendid free-fall

Grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, long after dark,

and believing ourselves to be adulting;

eyes finally locking as we quietly

passed by in the piles of aisles,

week upon foretasted week

  

Staring at a MySpace screen, and wondering

how we ever got so lucky as to be

reading the other’s responses;

barely cutting into the crust

of how entangled our rooted timelines

understand themselves to be

  

I have known you my entire life,

yet I hardly know you at all

I love you as if you were my childhood,

though I can no longer tell the difference

I do not have 'to have and to hold' you,

but experiencing you is a must

  

And if I could go back to the beginning,

I’d ask that you tell me all about

your favorite animal