—I notice the circles first

You are garnished by the finest darks

As your gaze falls sudden,

Meant to have missed mine, but

I have missed you

The last I’d heard

You’d wandered away from

Where we usually avoid meeting, yet

I am butterflies as you walk past

But you have since sworn away your net

Determined to catch some other magnificent beast or

Flittering thing

When I ask “how have you been”

I mean “how easy do you fall in love? I’d like to know”

And by that I mean to ask,

“Have you forgotten?”

I shift about this caged feeling for a while,

But all I feel is its cold metal—

—

c