Orbits

Sometimes I like to stand apart
from you, some ways, perhaps
across the room, or more;

then, with a sauntering approach,
you can be judged more fairly:
better measured against the Earth.

Up close, it can be hard to see
the myriad ways you catch me
off guard: we are distracted,

consumed by common life &
daily things, too familiar
to appreciate our strangeness.

We are, after all, oddities
in our local galaxies: the only ones
each of us orbit, undisrupted--

so I disrupt it. And then, coming
around the Sun, as it were, I see
your fingers up against your mouth

in an uncontrolled laugh, spilling
hair across your face and shoulders;
overcome with some humor

without pretense or poise--unaffected
joy. This is what I came here for.
So I return, back to orbit now,

settling again into our shared path,
richer for having stepped aside,
and happier to return.




April 2019