by Kate Miano

The Last Few Years As A Meteor Shower

1.

Again, it’s that time of year
it’s too cold for the beach and as I’m getting older
I’m not sure how anything ended up
behind me. I’m not sure how one
past life drifted into another: clutching a bottle, Canada,
clutching a man, friends like siblings,
becoming me. I still don’t have everything
I want: like a text back, less belly fat,
or an apology.
I’m still writing down wishes
and folding the paper
under a candle.
And Vince is letting me mope in his beach house and
after everyone else goes to sleep,
I’ll be on the porch praying to a few loose shooting stars.

2.

Laughing in a diner booth
Tara reminds me it’s been 10 years since
we claimed our spot here: A miracle
is keeping someone around that long, like a night
you see one star sparkling through the sky
and then another, and then another, and you didn’t have to be told
to look up, you were just looking anyway.
I tell her I think I’ve stopped running away
and that’s another miracle,
like learning to stop my wanting like an asteroid
that could blow away every friendship.

3.

The poet at the reading asks
if the summer universally sucked and everyone cheers.
I planned for the Hamptons and dance floors
and getting closer under the faint stars
shining through the city’s smog
not all this lost potential.
At least the languid days and a few years
got Isabella and me talking again,
debating Saltburn and the ways the body keeps the score
and how she was there, a few selves ago
when I saw my first shooting star.
I think one day we’ll know everything about each other again.
So maybe I haven’t seen everything yet.

***

Missed Connection

Missed connection. Rugby jersey, floppy hair. We were 18. Every night was a party in some other friend’s dorm room. It wouldn’t start just yet. You gave me half my music taste. I gave you late nights and a shared pool of regrets. I think we gave something else we can’t get back.

Missed connection. You called us the Glimmer Twins. We stayed out all night and went to the diner at 5am and you followed me back to my bed.

Missed connection. We drank Irish coffee on the steps and laughed. We smoked a cigarette and made a marriage pact. You carried me home a few times. You carried me.

Missed connection. Years later, you’ll say you didn’t know. My head was on your shoulder, my body in your bed. You don’t know why I never said anything. You were the person I left the party to see. One blizzard, you said you had to say something. Seeing stars, I walked to you. You said nothing.

Missed connection. After a few years, we found ourselves in that city again. You reached for me, I turned away. I’m trying to keep it like a snow globe safe on the shelf. We’re too pretty not to look at. We were built to be shaken up.

Missed connection. I go back to that dock, in my mind. We are there and it is late and there’s a chill off the water. The lights across the peninsula are lighting us up and we’re making jokes and debating albums. After the joint, you walk with me to get a hot chocolate and we go to our separate beds and the love is still so good. We have never kissed.

Photo by Austin Human on Unsplash