a small kitten with one eye... sitting on the floor of a bookstore for hours.... a sunny day on an empty street in Baltimore... quiet gardens in glass boxes... warm desert bodies strung on the walls... in your hands... a ripe orange balanced delicately in slow light... shallow dark water with koi... a wall of orchids extending with ferns... we smell them on our tippy toes... the light was honeyed, indelible, embroidering our gaze...

pajamas in a museum... mirror mosaics on a wall outside the train station... frigid air removed our breaths... hot cider with cinnamon under colored lights... our fingers were close to thawing... her beige wool scarf... reminding me of my mother...

Soft brown bedsheets... canvases dripping with color... a memorial on the fifth... across the water, a skyline glitters as he holds the intimate illusion in his eye... without damage or harm... satisfied without seeing... we ran through tunnels of spiraling light like following the pen of a child’s drawing... an art that is faithful to yourself, not others, not the narrative...