Before we knew one another

New York City Central Park

feeding ducks in the pond

Austin making quack-quack sounds

and Tina wanting to go

I looked at you for a long while

before you looked at me

and through my camera lense

I took a picture in black and white

your gaze, tender and aware as if to say

I am here and I’m glad you are too

and I nervous in my boyish wonder

trying to play coy though who was I kidding

tip toeing every word as I so often do

upon first meeting before I muck it all up

with the nonsense I carry like tattered old books

though that day there was no room for Paradise Lost

there was no desire for Walden or Poe

stepping lightly off the curb in those Italian Leather loafers

I thought went well with your hesitant smile

perhaps you felt it too when time stopped

not literally but figuratively as real as a care free afternoon

like that which was the fall in Central Park

and I think I even paid for dinner that night which I couldn’t afford

for all four of us since I had the credit

just trying to be nice, because well

you know, I was happy and I think you were too.