untitled

unexpectedly one afternoon
your face tilts up the way
it hasn’t done all the years

since the light of unwrinkled skin
gently rolled off the sheen
of sweat on the nape of your

now tilted neck. the folds stretch
and belie the crisscrossed network
of collected moments,

almost as if it wasn’t an unexpected afternoon
so long later. as if we had been still
all the while. as if your throat still held

words for me.