I fall in love with men unexpectedly, like an earthquake
that hasn’t shown up on the radar, or a tsunami
or some other kind of sudden crisis. I meet them in bars,
at house parties, at neighborhood potlucks
on blocks filled with cicadas making love so loudly
that even the kids playing basketball in the park
can’t drown them out. In college, picking up men
wasn’t a luxury; it was a career. My roommates
measured their own self-worth in the number
of notches cut into their dorm room bedposts.
Tonight, though, I return again to my ex-boyfriend
of over a year. It’s late, dark, the streetlights
form golden circles on his jeans when I kiss him.
Our fingers tangle like kite strings.
There’s something about coming back
to your first lover after having so many others,
like visiting home for the first time since childhood,
or Rip Van Winkle waking up
after twenty years of sleep.