your name, it still dances
and it haunts me.
it was my mother’s—
so it’ll never leave.

copied on every email, it seems.
her name, with another.
then I realize,

your last name may change one day.

summer hits me in that moment,
right in the back of the nose—
stale beer and dreams.

i miss you,
but there’s nothing much to say.
just know “the artist was present”
every time we said goodbye,
and that was proper form.

and if we ever meet again—
stare across the table, or room, at me.
don’t say a word.
please.

just look me in the eye
like you did
when there was no world—
just me,
and you,
and a bar,
and a dream,

-

one i’ll always remember fondly.