We met through the whispers of conversations,
the fascinations of finding through the silent pauses.
Our fingers laced, then traced each other’s lines,
the fine language of believing
we were meant for this moment spent receiving
signs without speech. I reached out and tickled your arm
in a charming sense while you trailed your breath up to my neck.
I expected you to linger but we were pulled apart
and my heart broke with the snapping out of my daydreaming,
seeming to push flat against the wall.
I don’t know what happened at all
but a small voice moistened my ear
and then it was so clear that we were once again near to the other.
The surge of the crowd pulled us away
but you stayed like a lifeguard,
a hard wall pushing back and back
until the waving attack of people ebbed.
We met in the web of unhurried trappings,
stuck in the wrappings of one another beside the gym wall.
I held your hand again then
when the others were gone to the dance floor.
I wanted more. I wanted to explore
this the heartbeating, the repeating inside in a wild pulsation.
Conversation drifted as you first lifted
your own voice to mine.
We found the time, a connection
that brought us crushed together,
the storming surf pushed us to the middle of the floor.
Slow music began for a girl and boy
wishing woman and man
Holding, folding into each one,
hands done in the softness of the shallows
that pushed against our feet.
An island, two that stand, and a sweet retreat up a stairway
and all I thought was yes, this is then heaven.
Jodi Girouard 