Kibosh

We meet in doorways:

in the space between leaving and staying;

your hand brushing mine as you pass me the salt across the table…

Everyone sees dinner. We taste something else.

Your mouth shapes words about the weather

while your eyes trace the hollow of my throat,

that place where my pulse betrays me.

I speak of traffic, of deadlines, of nothing—

my voice steady as a held breath while beneath the table our knees find each other in the dark.

This is the language we’ve learned: the accidental touch that lingers,

the glance that says later but means now,

the drive safe that aches like foreplay.

We were always almost.

Always the moment before a kiss,

Always the suspended second when clothes could fall or stay,

Always the mystery of whether the door opens or locks.

I know the shape of your wanting by the energy you expend into the space of the room when I’m near,

 by the way you seem to catch your breath when I say your name.

We are experts at hunger,

connoisseurs of restraint—

building cathedrals from the architecture of things we cannot have.

Tonight you’ll go home, your life a mystery

we’ll lie awake in separate beds

finishing what we started in that doorway,

in that holy space between

hello

and

goodbye.