After the chance meeting two years later when I met his fiancee,
we parted on the corner next to a streetlight that couldn’t
make up its mind whether to turn green or yellow.
When beta fish die, they float upside down in their tank on their backs,
iridescent scales shimmering beneath the surface
like the tips of angel wings. There is no funeral; they are simply eaten
by the others still remaining in the aquarium.
When I kissed him on the corner as the light turned green,
our mouths fell into one another like one of Georgia O’Keefe’s flowers,
the brilliant hues of a daffodil opening in a way
that many viewers of her art considered sexual.
He did not apologize; I did not speak-we simply stood there,
rain dampening our hair and sticking our clothes to our bodies
as the cars whooshed past us, so close the exhaust
from their mufflers felt like a dying breath.
When I left him standing at the intersection,
love still stretching its legs between us like a dancer,
the cars swallowed me up between them like betas,
hungry, already sensing the bittersweet scent of our goodbye,
ready to eat me whole.