there’s punks sleeping on park benches -
two kids probably not old enough
to drink, covered head to toe in
patches and pins that say fuck the cistem, and all the year’s latest hot new pronouns.
there are folding tables,
set up in not so neat rows,
stacked with zines
about cicadas, and sex, and cycling,
pinned in place with the
prettiest stones that artists
could steal from the planters nearby.

the stars have all aligned,
and chris and reese have
somehow managed
to get a sunday afternoon together off.
we trade stories about being
too tired to do much these days,
and trade glances between us
that say we've been doing too much,
with too little, for too long.

you asked me to pick
a print for you,
and then gave it to me afterwards;
a dyke bar,
or maybe a house show -
packed with femmes and fags
and butches of every shape & size -
coloured all in pink and black,
shadowed as if we were
on the dance floor.

we say our goodbyes,
a kiss at the train station
(it will never get old -
kissing you at the train station)
and as i sit on the hot curb
waiting for the bus home,
i admire the dandelions fighting
for sunlight, clawing for survival
through the cracks in concrete sleepers.
i am so in love with the inches
we have managed to crawl our way into.