It took a long time to get home tonight
Both of us walking more slowly than normal
in the soft night air under yellow streetlights
Laughing and joking, a couple of times I reached around your slight body
to awkwardly hold your shoulder or your waist
and kept glancing away,
too nervous to look long at your face
Which is beautiful, by the way,

Although I found your eye shadow too much
and your hair too little
and I sometimes wished you'd hush
so I could hear the people be people.
We had a lovely time, eating
cheese and I drank beer and you drank wine
in the sun by the sea,
In a place where I can blissfully, peacefully, quietly be me.