We moved, once, and habitual was your foot to my follow,
in debt my blush to your concern

like we were the oxygen of the other, at either ends of the water.

We swam, once, to the other, in crossed currents, in avoidance
of those cold-blooded fish dipping their blond hairs
into clotted canals that your darker locks turned briefly bland,

the beginnings of a ballet in two parts, you the body and I the babble

written in flame on the water

in this city sucked from the sea with its ferry, crossing and connecting,
as habitual to its route as I became to the curve of your spine.

You were fire and I the fury. Or was as I the fire and you the flight?

We lit fires, for moments, on the water, flames that found their place,
finally, in the stars, fading before fully noticed.

We moved, once, as if each was the compliment to the other’s jewel
even if we knew that time was not the compliment to the us

that danced, for a time, as a flame, on the surface of the water.

If I was still there, by that water, waiting for the blue ferry, crossing,
I would habitually dip foot into current to test its temperature.

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

Inspired by a Twitter Prompt