old haunts

I’ve gone back to mine, returned
to the scent of my alma mater—
roasted peanuts and puppy kibble,

cloves and dying lake fish,
deep-fat fryers, their golden
shimmer of grease. Eight years ago,

someone else put on a tie, took me
to dinner at the fanciest hotel
in town. Tonight you and I sleep

in its best room, curve
into each other like commas.
Last night we sat at the slate

bar in the lobby. Our tongues
presented our teeth with bouquets
of juniper, fizz, lime.

Our knees kept touching.
On that date eight years ago
I tined all the capers

off the chicken. I’d eat
them now: small explosion
of brine a reminder of the coast

where you and I have never been.
As I walk to your reading
I bump into old versions

of myself: here a ghost Christina
running down Central, here a ghost
spilling tomato bisque on her shirt.

Ghost in love and ghost
out of love. On the bench
with the best eagle-view

of the library, someone has left
an empty bottle of coconut rum.
You read. I not-drink to what

last sat here: a girl in a stained sweater.
To what we leave behind, then. To
that great shudder of momentum.