Remember in the bar-blank night the time
I touched your breast accidentally
when hugging hello and would not
for the rest of the night stop apologizing
and then would not stop apologizing about
apologizing, worrying you about my worry
that my apologies sounded fake, after
three of the bar’s cheapest beers everything
but you began to seem that way: fake, an ersatz
translucence, the lip of a sweet so sharp
it tastes bitter, though this is not about bitterness
but accidents, this is not about accidents
but how stupid easy it is for a stupid story
to become the memory that comes to mind when
I need most to recall you to earth along with
your beauty, the sweet kind that defies any
of the earth’s explanations, when I need
to remind myself but moreso the earth
that such beauty exists, existed, and my mind
tricks itself, though maybe this is its way
of focusing on my embarrassment and not
the bloodflush of grief I feel bodily when
I think of you in that bar with the night
in your teeth, strange heart, wild-dancing,
a breathing compendium of every beauty
that every beautiful song says should never
have an end.
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