1. You touched my sleeve and grinned, leaned close. The Smiths were playing on the speakers, the bartender girl cleaned the bar with wide sweeps of a white rag, pale snow fell outside the fogged-up windows and it was night on the street, sirens in the distance, pale streetlamps flickering, your smile the only light in the dim room.

2. We laughed in the sun, sat at the cafe table and watched all the people stream by on the sidewalk; we drank and laughed with lemon and coronas, bloody marys with jalapenos, your skin the color of warm caramel, coffee, worn and smooth.

3. When we sat on the couch and gorged ourselves on deep-dish pizza, gooey cheese and yum, watching a movie, warm under a shared blanket, I didn't know that you were dating half of Chicago.

4. Walking at night along my street, summer, fireflies, the cool perfume of night flowers heavy from the gardens, no breeze, only us holding hands in the darkness, the ghost of love drifting along behind us in the shadows.

5. Sleeping, slow breaths, steady, with my open palm flat against your back I can feel your heart, smell your skin, all the silent vibrations, warm shudderings, trembles and movements, all of the world could be inside you and I'll never know.

6. The tattoo on his back is of an angel, I think, but you can't see the face. We watch Charlie Brown's Christmas Special, and we laugh when the adults "speak": Waah Waaah Wawh Woooh? Waah wahh wah. No matter how old you are, the adults still sound like that. The muscles in his back knot and unknot; the angel is pensive, shifting wings and shadowed face.

7. He walks directly out into oncoming traffic, and never gets hit. Ever. He just knows the pattern. If I were to follow him blindly across the street, I would die in seconds. I was not born knowing his urban rhythm. I can't trace the city lines on my palm. All signs point to stop, red light, dead end.

8. We drove all afternoon until we reached the old cemetery on the outskirts of a faded prairie town. Summer gold and green around us, we lingered by crumbling headstones, tracing names and numbers with our rough fingers. Life is so fleeting, pouring swiftly away from us, the chill of autumn falling with every quiet sentence.