I whispered your name in a napkin, crumpled it into my palm and opened an empty hand. I poured our story in a coffee mug and buried it in the weeds behind the park bench. A love so secret I refused to tell it even to myself. I dreamed we kissed in the cafeteria line while the steward looked away. I sang you loudly in an empty car, mountain storm slicking the roads. Stay home, the ocean, who never lies, told me, so I did. Runner, I imagined my words becoming the pulse in your ears. I dreamed your shoes beneath my bed. Your wet paint tenderness. Your shimmer like water held at the brink of over-spilling the cup. The sun, who is always right, aimed her compass point at my chest and said, Wait, you'll be amazed. Years gone, your scent woven in the cables of a thrift shop cardigan. I wished you well under the changing colors of a sourwood tree— your words arrived not like a dam burst, more like a rhythm I'd never noticed, pulsing in my throat.