How We Come To Kiss

by Gary Margolis

You plan to be around
for the landing
of their astronaut. The asteroid

we ‘re hearing a lot about.
How it might hit or miss us.
If all goes right. Time is what it is

and was. And the space between us.
How we come to kiss.
Lean in to each other. As if

there was so little time left we have
to make the most and least of it.
Letting the moment pass.

As we often did. Letting love
escape its momentary pass.
Was it me or you who said

to look up to the moon?
And in that tilting stole a kiss.
Like a pool ball coming off

its rail, its cushion.
Toward its pocket destination.
In the pool room. The business

my father owned. Urging me
to work there, too. Forget writing
poems. Looking up to the night

sky. Those ricocheting planets.
I would want to tell him.
Even when I know I shouldn’t

just say it. Too sentimental,
I suppose, to write how much
I miss him. How glad I was

to brush down those felt tables.
The job he gave me. To feel
what it was to work. Prepare myself

for the other world.
For you, my love, coming this close
again.