you reach for me, your hand
sliding across the cold veined bus seat
leaving a sluggish trail of warmth.
that seat is approximately fifty inches
long. that’s enough room for me, you
and friendship on any given day.
but sometimes when we’re alone,
you squeeze friendship out,
entirely submerging it in elongated eye
contact and sarcasm, and press
your slender, khaki-clad thigh
against my black tight-veiled thigh
(usually the left one, the one with the
birthmark I’m self-conscious about, until
you intentionally unintentionally graze it
with the backside of your hand.)

half of me is iced, pressed against the
chilled metal wall, and then there is
the side of me that’s touching you, the
surface of the sun wedged between our shoulders,
space and time in the open air between the curve
of my body and your one-eighty torso. meteorites
falling from our mouths and crashing into each other,
everything is loud! we are loud! I am not loud alone
when I’m with you, we are loud together and you
swear with all your might at me for annoying you
and you then you might send yourself
into a silent laugh, the quick blip of a shooting star,
before we are silent again.
and then Nabokov or Fitzgerald lulls me to sleep on
your shoulder. and you reach over and mark
my page for me, trying to keep your shoulder stiff,
because I do not annoy you. and it’s only when
I’m sleeping that you’ll admit
I’m your intergalactic dream girl.