I think about him still. The lone boy  
standing at an edge of the obelisk  
at the crack of dawn playing a tune  
I’d never heard, warm brass with cinnamon tendrils,  
then sudden sweetness—a furtive gecko painting its tail  
across the unfolding. You are right to ask  
what a seventeen-year-old girl was doing there.  
I was a runaway. It’s no tragedy. I had meant  
for an epic rebellion, but was gently held,  
my days thrilled from end to end. A bygone era.  
I couldn’t tell you what I was doing. I only know  
that I stood three meters from this boy, his skin a hue  
even deeper than mine in that city hell-bent  
on drowning us under its weight.  
 Gray and blue and purple wafting behind him  
more ancient than any ruin, even as they slide  
into light. He grew me into something else, this boy. 
Something no longer a child. Stale smoke  
on the morning air, a tang of espresso beans.  
 Head upturned, eyes closed, casual  
as the first raindrop, he slid a nocturne  
in C sharp minor between loneliness  
and solitude like tucking a hand under  
a shoulder blade. Perhaps this, my skin engulfed  
in morning dew and music,  
is the true human romance.  
Immune to purpose. Just a hinge  
between day and night,  
the right to be a body in its body.