Long night of endless laughter—
And then we were there locked like antlers
beneath the eave of my house in old Manor Park—
both of us a bit wine woozy adrift
in the long uncertain dream
that is one’s twenties.

You remarked that the constellation on my t-shirt
glowed in the dark like a frozen sneeze
in a flu season commercial for anti-bacterial soap.
Weren’t we the cleverest?

We had it then—
a wealth of clumsy youth that we didn’t know how to spend.

We wobbled like fawns on fresh legs all summer—
so sure we were strutting.
Years later and our gait straightens to
the mortgage, the neighbors.
Then the march—we patrol the walls we build.

We’re too old to be kissing
in those three o’clock mornings
we’re too sensible to see again.

We know better now.

We hate that we know better.