A Dance of Strangers

This room is filled with chance encounters.
Tonight we sip off our week’s adventures
in order to dream of new beginnings
and let slip false starts.

We huddle together away from the night,
but still sit with our fabricated shields.
A mass of singular beings
wishing fervently to connect.

This room,
filled with clanking ice and glass,
soiled with half-hearted smiles
and necktie nooses
and magnetic skirts
and sweet perfume,
all I see is you.

I tried to look away,
only to be drawn in again
and again
by what my mind believes could be.

I have not yet heard you speak,
or know that you hate cheese,
or smiled with you on a rainy day,
or shared a tandem dance
on a foreign beach
with no wish to go home.

I do not know
who your first kiss was stolen by,
who gave you passion for the summer,
who was blessed
with your first flirtatious smile
that later broke their heart.

I do know that,
as your glass kisses your lips,
so too do I wish to feel your breath
and have you breathe me in as well.

I do know that
you outshine any other here tonight
with a simple curling of your lip
as you catch my gaze.

What I don’t know
you can teach me in time.
What I do may yet fade.

But tonight,
bless me and make me your thief.

Time makes sand of all things,
but tonight,
let us chase away clocks
and crowds
and armor
and allow this present
to build a moment which will,
for now,
tear down the walls of eternity.