Two years have gotten old, fallen sick, and died in the cooler dirt
under my porch.

And more than seven hundred days have blown away like weak flowers
cut by uneven wind.

But still, with a touch of fever, I can tell you about Ruby, her ring,
our uncounted moments, and the tease of her knuckles and lips.

Until our first night, no lamp or moon had bruised our skin at
the same time — vast the distance, instant the touch.

Like me, Ruby spoke with a brawler’s tongue and a honey smile.
We made games of delicate cursing and impatient kisses.

Unlike me, she left things unsaid. I saw her heart only from the corners of my eyes,
hidden in the mess of her room.

From our unsuspected first to our unknown last, she wore a ring (neither gold
nor magic) that was her mother’s gift.

“When I left, Mum told me to be fucking brave,” she said. And those
exact words wrapped ‘round Ruby’s finger, pulse, and me.

Ruby’s words pressed into my steady hand tightly. She’d crack my
fingers between hers, smiling when I was wasted for words.

The best kiss I’ve known belonged to a shameless woman (full of fear),
who kept my glasses in her purse next to her own.

Two years ago, Ruby called me a bastard, knowing I was her bastard,
and fell asleep on my shoulder, just so I would wake her.