She told me there was no way 
I could ever touch her like that again.
I agreed. 

Two years passed and I saw her at a party, throwing herself into the fury of sweaty evenings and fire-fly shadows sexing sheets, the sweat pooled behind her hears and on her make-up, turning her into a mermaid bathing in the tremulous bass of the music and the hands of those who would have her belong to them, if only for a few hours. 

She saw me, stopped dancing, 
and looked to the window at the far end of the room, as though I ought to follow her lead as I once did unquestioningly. 

I followed. 

There was a pause as she bent forward and swept her hair backwards 
to rain brown moonbeams all around me
she knew exactly what she was doing and I found my hands shaking again-
the first time in 762 days. 

She asked me what I was doing here 
and if I planned to stay- 

The East is a big place, I said. 
She told me it was only as big as what my right eye could see looking North; the rest was just flac and old buildings. 

I asked her if she could feel the wind between her legs out here.

She nodded.

I told her “Well then. I guess I’ve been touching you for a while now.”