On the day we walked to Saffy’s,
side by side, careful not to touch,
I heard you laugh for the first time.
Really laugh, you know. It felt like a melon
had been burst open by quivering fingernails,
the juice glistening everywhere.
Around us, the trees waved and whispered.
The heat, normally unrelenting, softened a bit;
the cars took the long way around
our space.
I think we both sensed a shared solitude.
Also read: Have You Left the Building?
I know my most precious friends by the way their laughs
curl upwards from the soil of their bellies.
The lightest form of myself emerges in their presence. I am lying
on my back in water, my eyelids coral against the sun.
As I looked at you, heard your laughter touching the skies,
I felt buoyed.
Here is an anchor and a float in one.
To recall this as a “moment”
would be to distort it.
It was the circular settling
of a cat
into a cat-sized patch of sun.
Jayesha Koushik works in the development sector and wants to be a writer when she grows up. Find her on Twitter @jayesha22 and Instagram @jiksawpuzzle
Featured image credit: Ali Yahya/Unsplash