Baby, Sometimes

Vacation days and you forget there was ever a time of early mornings and busy days of someone else's bidding. Shuttling to the train station, picking up and dropping off angels from other cities, other lands, every day is a parade of lazy meals in green grass, unmentionable amounts of coffee, drifting conversations and hysterical laughter. You show them the city as if it is your own and it makes you adore it as you never did. Look, there across the water, there's my church, do you recognize it? They never love its beacon like you do. They have not seen it burn in the midnight sun after drunken stumbles homeward, like you have. This affection creeps up on you, catches you unaware, softens your violent adjectives.

Still, the phone seethes with friends unseen, nights unlived. Your heart weeps at missed connections, at the endless time remaining until your paths may cross. You try to balance your commitments and fail. There aren't enough twilit nights in one summer to satisfy your social heart.

It beats steady, now. You enjoy its vitality, while it lasts.