Bucketfuls

Originally published on April 24, 2021

Bucketfuls

for F—

We exchanged 12 messages before

you led me down the stairs to your

apartment by the church with rainbow

steps, & this is how one gets Murder

off of Tinder, but I trusted already

the story you would tell me 

of your niece—three oceans away—

who declared the ocean so vast 

as to contain “a whole bucketful”

of water,—& how your walls 

would be painted with cosmos,—how 

the eyes of a deep space photographer

could paint me with stars,

                                             & you are

the only person I’ve kissed only

once—because your favorite band

quoted my favorite poem, & you longed

for the words between my lips as I recited 

my own, until you asked me

if you could catch them in yours, &

we strangers linked fingers until 2am, &

your bookshelves were four rows

of philosophy, & you aren’t religious,

but you told me you get it anyway, 

& I suppose loneliness is a sort

of religion on Seattle Tinder

                                                  because

I remember your niece & your longing

& the cement above our heads glistening

from rain, but not if you ever said 

my name,—& because sharing a kiss 

knowing we’d never touch again 

felt like a sort of worship to how brief

encounters make us exist always 

as echoes, as one whole ocean in a bucket 

in the memory of a stranger.