For a very brief time, A. & E were like
a diphthong, sitting side by side on the
bench outside the meditation center,
meeting secretly at odd times and places:
7:13pm in front of the library;
2:32pm on the cliff overlooking the Pacific.

A. wrote poems for E. and sent them on
kitschy postcards. E. was introduced to A.’s
son; A. met E.’s former spouse.

For a very brief time their pulses synchronized.
The rest of the world retreated like a
chorus line moving upstage, letting the
two of them stand alone in the floodlights.

Then, one night, alone on a street corner,
they got so close that each of them disappeared,
vanished like binary stars in a death spiral.

E. was frightened by this, and so they agreed to unhook
their limbs, letting the gravitational vortex fling them
to opposite ends of the story. No longer singular,
but plural once again—each.