First Glance

From across the room I first saw you,

Hair matted and wet

Eyes dark and wild.

Your gaze turned to me and

caught me like a fish in a net—

panic and wonder at the unknown.

My breath pulled away like a length

of ribbon from a young girl’s hair, coaxed by the wind.

My ribs transformed into a cage filled with birds —

Is this what it looks like to see my heart outside of my body?

Have we always been one, or are we two?

The clay met the sun

The wind scattered the sand

The water and the reeds made a pond and

my son, that day a bond

formed that would not be broken.