Young

I don’t remember
if we kept any plants.

If we fussed over them
like new parents

worried that the water
wasn’t enough or the sun.

I remember a single window
was all we needed of light

and when we moved again
a balcony looked out

to a pitch black ocean
of grass and the half-radiance

of fireflies. Below us the trees lined
the street like checkpoints

and every fall their leaves
would steal more color off our mouths,

our young hair. And our hands, they
were young too.

We dreamed of a garden
and a two-storey house.

We dreamed of children
or maybe we were told to.

We talked of returning to the old
city of mild winters.

Long windows and stray cats
was the way we memorized it.

I imagined going back there
this evening,

to that same flight of stairs
where we first met

to meet again,
or never meet.

***