"This I Believe"

Emily Bennett

I want to remember:

the metal shapes at the art museum, glued to the wall making a slow, languid arc, the way we talked about language and you stood next to me. The sleeve of your jacket touched mine (for a second, so I believe)

My poetry teacher says the first word of a line should be the most important

but if that were so all these verses would consist of your name.

(your name has a density, a smoothness)

I refused to eat lunch because you were paying. This is what I will remember: your shirt soaked with water and sweat, translucent, your skin and the contrast I want so desperately, your skin hot and making my palms sweat and melt.

Your shoulderblade rounding out to fill the curve of my hand and the way you went white like notebooks.

This is what I remember. At lunch my salad dressing was sour. You sat across from me. I piece you together like this because I don't know any better way

to tell you about the metal alphabet, and even if you said the heart was only a construct of my imagination

I believe somewhere in you is constructed something I cannot begin to imagine (somewhere in you a heart has learned a new way to beat.)