With You

All night, they mistook
The white bat who dropped
In and out of the darkness
And light of a lamp post
For a meteor shower
Pouring from the stars
That would not give up.
It wasn’t the first time
They’d mistaken one thing
For another: Good lovers
For wine, a beautiful lie
For truth, another swallow
For some form more rare
From the pages of the guidebook.
But why be disappointed?
For they were together sipping
Rosé below Jupiter. In hours,
They will wake in the cabin
They’ve rented to make love.
Then they will rise from the warm sheets
To seek Neptune through the telescope,
That god of freshwater, the sea
Who will be outshone by Mars
And the quarter moon.
“Isn’t that how it is?” he’ll ask
As she strains her eye
Against the lens, adjusting
and readjusting the focus ring
to no avail—“Life, this constant search
For water—each day a journey,”
He’ll take her hand, he’ll pull her
To him, he’ll kiss her with eyes open—
“That ends and begins, thank God,
With you.”