a something, to fill the request

a handful of solitary figures in dark forests in dark woodcuts or daugerrotypes
my husbands-wives bound to me across time
all of us in the same poorly lit room
scribbling
but filling the same empty chamber, unaccompanied, ecstatic
the room bulging with our solitude
we write one word over and over again, it's always in a language everyone has forgot

here we are

what labor we committed to in order to find each other

what searches for wheres and whens,

what riddles of this corner or the next,

this stranger's bed or that.

how we got to know one another through the voices of others

and the conversations with chance that assured us of our path.

how we danced around one another,

our lines grazing and flirting,

so close to touching but no not yet,

memorizing shared places and things,

learning of the other only through footsteps and echoes.

the way we patiently prepared to lock eyes one mere day and know

that we'd been here before

and it has the warm smell of home