how odd, how rare. eyes connect,
and the irrelevant falls away, so,
to the end of the beginning we go,
how odd, how rare, she tired of
players, gamers, inevitable disappointment,
so she assays his
approach, snd speaks first:

What are you after?

no hesitation no guising, no uncertainty, he states with surety,
product of grace added to sadness of series of serious accumulations of
disappointment,

"A shared understanding..."

Equals in their shocked surprise,
both stare, hard, then harder,
examining faces and rising heat,
suppressing the intriguing intensity,
imagining outcomes, not endings,
futures, not casualties, and the
assessing silence, not uncomforting,

indeed, the silence soothes, the
attraction stirring and they answer
the overhanging questioning answered simultaneously, with a
yes, a simple supposition, an agreed upon proposition, a mutuality
calming, and the ending of a
shared understanding...