Intimacies

The dog-eared book some drowsy passengerhad left behind in the plane's seat pocketI discovered was just the thing I wanted to read,with its marginalia, the folded page corners,the chocolate stain.

The sound from thirty-eight years agoin that dilapidated apartment buildingas my neighbor passed his handalong the thin wall of the unlit corridor(bulbs burned out) to find his way,perhaps unsteady from drink or despair,the sound of his sliding palmso close to my temple as I lay in bed:a deliberate, caressive sound.

An urgent whisper in a restaurant that carriedto my table, a whisper I could not discoverthe origin of, though I looked all about meat my fellow diners, the servers, the manseated across from me who was my husbandat the time.