A night of broken dreams,
a day of trembling hands
minutes of knocking knees
wearing a path into an already
aging and worn wooden deck.
A moment of sight,
a moment when time stopped
and words failed, paralyzed
by fear, by beauty, by a smile.
A meal prattling on, trying
to see signs, not knowing what
those signs might be.
Twenty-three years of a joy
I hadn’t known possible,
still captivated by a heart,
a beauty and a passion
born in one nervous moment
more than twenty-three years ago.