Anecdotes to recount if we ever meet for coffee, 1

I once — for an instant, just a second—
managed, somehow, to think
that I’d forgotten you. And, trembling, I scrambled
to comb through whatever you’d left of me —
every stolen kiss, every soft word, every gesture
that’d ever made me think we soured;
every time you’d told me “I love you”
and I didn’t know what to say back; that one day
that I kissed your face
and hit you with my nose, and apologized
and fled running
before having to run back for my keys.

And I found you there,
in the bits and pieces, just slightly dried
by time.