When You Said My Name

I caught your gaze in media res saying my name.
It seemed such a novelty, spouting from your lips,
like a fountain dripping sounds so fluid I was sure
my eyes saw each letter drawn on the nighttime sky
with the elegance of an Arabic calligrapher
before a single sound funneled into my ear canals.
Had the night been cooler, each escaping breath
would have crystallized into an abstract work of art
avant-garde enough to be featured in any MoMA
and I wonder whether the color of the precipitate
would have matched the arctic blue of your irises.
The chill I got from your hushed tone, causing each
syllable to seep into my muscles, was the only thing
keeping my balance as I stood there, capsized,
wondering for the first time if my name was actually
some fanciful French turn of phrase, a word
to be hummed only in the ear of another lovebird
under the guiding warmth of a full moon’s embrace.
To you, it was a simple hello, a careless siren call.
To me, it was a masterpiece with my name on it.