everything is coming later
like rain in april
and robins after the snow,
promises we made without speaking
yet everybody seems to know

so someone told me you liked me

(you liked me,
someone told me)

but I learned that first when I let you down
and you didn’t reach to take my hand

now everything is coming later
like blooms in early may,
a shakespearean fall from grace
turned to private victories
in a public place

so someone asked me to stay—
but if I stayed, you said,
you’d hold me,
which you weren’t sure
I would understand

stiff like superglue,
he asks to turn the music off
in service of good talk, circling the topic

at a brisk walk
me loping to keep up
and searching in vain for a second to speak up

I tell him about secret societies,
he tells me his name
I show him my vigil candles,
he folds his thumb over mine
like an origami crane

and sometimes he wants to see me
but sometimes I stay away
just to sit at bowers park in the rain
just to count the cars on the train