Ziff of the Past

Last night,

you came back to me.
Unexpected,
like time hadn’t passed at all.
Not in the way that people really come back,
through doors or phone calls or second chances,
but the way that memory returns when you’re a little tired and
there is room next to you to receive something tender.

With the relaxed joy
that you used to carry into every room, you peeked into the kitchen, 
Let’s go for a drive. You can pick the CD.
You said it like it was a gift.
And it was.

We climbed into your Jeep
I let my arm rest out the window
my hair unspooling into the salty air.
Then the song came on. 
When I turned to look at you,
you already had that grin,
the one that made mischief feel like a virtue.
You cranked the volume,
and we sang loud and brave and just slightly off-key
to the stars, to the streetlights, to the man at the gas pump.

The boy with the coin, 
the girl with the bird.

And there you were.
You were right there.
Just like I thought you always would be.

We pulled over at an old candy shop.
You said it reminded you of me.
It’s so charming! you beamed.
Everything with charm reminds me of you, you teased.

I chose a freshly dipped caramel apple,
the velvety chocolates,
and an art print that reminded me of you.

Suddenly, we were in the big schoolyard,
pretending to battle ghosts.
I laughed so hard I started to cry.
The kind of laughter that emancipates you.

I noticed you were wearing that absurd T-shirt we made 
with spray paint and duct-tape
in the alley behind the tall downtown buildings.
Bikes Not Bombs

Then everything shifted.
As dreams do.
As life does.

We were in the art house,
the long hallways like rivers of drywall and unusual shapes.
We were searching for each other.
Following the sounds of our own amusement.

And in the quietest corner,
I found it.
The Polaroid.
You, guitar in hand,
eyes half-closed in song.
Typed below, in crooked letters:
don’t ruin mE, Oops.

Don’t ruin me.
Oops.

I tried not to wake up.
I really, really tried.

And then you were gone again.
Except, you never do quite vanish, do you?
You just sort of step into the wings,
the way a radio fades on the back roads --
still there, just quieter.
Present in the hush, in the space between then and now.