I stood next to her
at a poetry reading
that we both arrived to
too early,
our shoulders grazing
as we swayed.
Green hair hallelujah
and a face full of
metal constellations,
she told me that
her little brother cried
the day she left,
made her promise to
come back and
create something new
together.
We traded names of poets
like baseball cards,
like speaking their lines
would conjure them
into our midst.
