A March Night in 1989

C. Christine Fair

I cannot be with you. Tentative, unfaithful and elusive, you are necrotic

I cannot be without you. Quixotic and mercurial, you are vivifying.

Decades later, the blooming daffodils can call you back to me

My body recalls the scent of your skin, the coarseness of your hair, the tracks on your back left by my nails

and quivers.

Breathing the January moment when you threw me down on the hood of your car

and reclaimed me.

Not for a month or a week.

For an hour.

Ruing the space that expanded between us by its end

ashamed of wanting you still and wishing that you would find me again.

Regretting our acrid fights and my desperation to claim you, grasp you

Fearing that I would want you still if I saw you fading away in a strange crowd.

As always, beyond reach and electrifying.

This was published in December 2019 in The Sandy Review Review, which is available at: https://sandyriverreview.com/2019/12/24/daffodils-for-armand/