musée

a heavy evening rain rose as a loaded fog,
cloaked us like a dimming theater light.
grateful for an excuse to hush under the guise of proper manners
we sat shoulder to shoulder, our eyes focused safely in the distance,
unsure exactly the show to follow but knowing with certainty
that it was starting.

just for the fun of it, i turned your smile over in my lap until it softened,
bated your breath,
sparked flint against the base of my own spine.
i fancied an impossibility
that this moment was inevitable, found myself shuffling through versions
of the vastly different people we could have arrived to it as.

after all,
what were we but shoe boxes full of trading cards shelved at our childhood homes,
each bearing our face with different uniforms, records?
what more had we done to reach right now but closed our eyes, stuck our hands in, and plucked one out?

i thought
how easy it is, to burn a box of cardstock.
the plastic coating would add an edge of stubbornness
clinging to its former form
before giving way
curling into a puff of black smoke.