Departing/Returning

Our love will always be like this:

Showering in the dark, one song looping,
your fingers through my hair,

Reaching out for the warm slick of your skin
through our fogged breath.

It will always feel like this when you leave:

Shivering as the water goes cold, the air
thickening with humidity -

I know you are living
your different lives with different
people, like I do,

But I am still there in the shower, in the dark,

And this is still the way our love feels:
the water bursting forth again,

Channeling across your
browbone and down into
our throats,

Sweet like the nectar from a ripe papaya.

This is the way we will always be:

A series of arrivals and departures,
many lives running parallel,

And at the center of it all -
this reverberating closeness,
this reaching out in the dark.