Apricots

What did I notice about you the first time I saw you?
I remember your eyes, dark and piercing through the haze in the bar.
I remember your hair, shiny and thick.
I remember you wore a hat.
I remember that you were not alone.

You came up to talk to me anyway,
And we talked about meaningless things, the way people do
When they are really thinking other things
About each other.
I tried to be funny, turning a lock of my long hair into a fake moustache.
I’m sure you could tell that I was nervous,
But you laughed anyway.
I’m not sure how or why, but somehow,
We kissed each other,
In the middle of a crowded room,
And then, so suddenly, you were gone.
Yet you were still there, on the fringes of my life,
Just a few words that appeared on a screen now and then,
When I’d least expect it,
Just a face,
Beautiful but distant,
Nothing I could touch, but
Nothing I could forget.

Months passed, a year really, and then suddenly,
There you were again, standing in the same place,
On a night very much the same as the first night,
And once again, it was your eyes that caught me and
Made me a little nervous, though less so this time.
You were wearing that same hat, and soon enough
We were alone together, and
There was nothing between us;
No bad jokes,
No fake moustaches,
No hat.
Yet we were very far apart.
I knew this somehow, yet I felt at ease despite the distance,
Enough to fall asleep when you slipped out to go to the store,
And again when you returned
To slip into the bed beside me.

In the earliest part of the morning,
When the first light creeps up slowly and
Diffuses through the atmosphere,
You can see things in a different way.
Not clearly, as you do when the sun is very bright,
Or even at night, under glaring electric lights.
No, in that part of the day, the light is so soft that
There are few colors.
Everything seems gray.
Yet on that morning,
When I awoke hours before you did,
And slipped out of the bed to dress quietly
So as not to wake you,
And scribbled a note to say goodbye, I
Turned to look at you one last time.

You were sleeping so quietly, your
Breathing so soft, and I
Thought for a moment that your skin looked
As if it were made of apricots.
Like a sweet, amber-colored fruit
Hanging from a broad-branched tree
In a walled garden,
On a hillside somewhere far away,
Maybe in Cappadocia.
I don’t know why this thought came into my mind
At that moment, but I knew
As I slipped into my shoes and placed
The note on the table beside you,
And touched the tips of my fingers to
The skin that made me think of apricots
That somehow I’d find a way
To taste it again.