i made eye contact with the floutist

I made eye contact with the floutist. It lasted only a second, lips pursed, his breath flowing through me and piecing out my racing heart from an irregular drum. He was lit by chinaballs, glowing green like a number five, from Jacksonville and leaning over a pocket trumpet in the way a musician leans. Then, connection, the golden line across the stage, literal after the year of the metaphor. After I have walked so far on pottery legs that I find myself pieced together, a new ship in the end. A new ship, blessed and notarized by the floutist’s gaze. The shot-reverse: fingers laced to what feels like one hand. The only anything separating you and me is the color of our wines. I couldn’t keep a smile off my face if I tried.

What a picture; I think it distracted him. I made eye contact with the floutist and he broke his breath for only a second to laugh at me like he was seasoned in the art of mind-reading. We’ve each heard this song before, he’s playing it just for me, it’s the one that goes like this: I wish I knew how to paint. I think the joint in your mouth and hair lit up like a halo would look quite nice wrapped in brushstrokes. It goes like this, you nearly bite the bouncer. You get loud. We get two glasses, one red, one white; it looks to me like a bedside table or a bruise. I make eye contact with the floutist, tracing shapes across your knuckles, and he smiles at me like a father. He must know about how you wipe your fingers on my stomach and how the museum of a bathroom wall makes me want to make a mess. He must. He was small once too, and unbridled, and somewhere down the line he picked up the flute.