Expecting the Milky Way

He's almost afraid to meet her again,

he laughs into the phone,

especially in the nowhere-to-hide 

flatlands of their youth.

He wonders will she see beyond

the graying hair, face creased with 

the harsh march toward middle-age,

to the lean, light-hearted lover

curved over car engines and red beers

and her own velvet awakenings,

yet their voices meld into the old cadence,

surging like sparks along the wires 

that reconnect them as they reminisce 

about cars and mutual friends,

and what she's remembering is

the sweet searching of his tongue 

circling  just inside her lips,

his hand a subtle curve under her breast,

and she too wonders 

if they can meet again

to talk of roads taken and not,

of children and jobs and obituaries,

and not the dreams that bloomed like moon flowers

under star-encrusted skies of the heartland

when hopes were so bright they could blind

and young hearts kept expecting the Milky Way

to shower down stars like an anointment, 

blessing them with the impossible—

a future without sorrows,

life without regret.

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