Hushed breaths, all of us waiting,
no one wanted to say those damned words.
“See you next year… maybe!
Maybe I’ll be invited to come back?”
It’s not the uncertainty in our silly question
that thrums in the back of our throats.
It’s the memories of the people we’ve repeated that to
that disappeared somewhere between there and here.
And now the here moves to another there,
and a thousand possibilities scurry out from under the rocks.
We wonder if our desperation will align with our employer’s
to align with the desperation to see our friends once again.
We realize these places where we meet only once a year
are not magical but impossible.
They do not exist in any form
outside of our annual attachment.
Even though I blame the tears on the Green Elixir from earlier,
I know these tears come from elsewhere.
They come from that embrace on the street corner
where my breath will remain…
Until I see those faces again
in a new place and time.