I met her just twice. Light banter, heavy thumps of heart beat. Wit. Candour. Verbal jousts. I always win those. And everything that follows, I lose.

There wasn’t going to be any more. There couldn’t possibly be. But I always wish and hope in the bleakest of bets that a tide may turn for once in my favour.

I did not know her. We spent some hours together. I still did not know her. The time shared was delicious. Ripe as peaches with juice dribbling down the chin. Blackberries bursting with sweet ink. Such a fertile evening, I could have bitten its fruit. I could have planted seeds in that fallow with a promise to return. I wanted to know the taste of tonight.

Freedom. Nervous perspiration. Swallowing. Excitement of my tingly fingers and her cold hands I wanted to warm against my ears. Oh the beauty. Youth. The dark blue sky. Music and beer. Heads poking out of car windows to take bites out of the night. Each moment more delectable than the last. Heads that were mouths bursting with the flavours of the moment; of this time. The right here, the right now. The you, the me. And the improbability of us.

The night in your mouth has the flavour of a banjo strumming. Metallic cold. Metallic warmth. Like blood, like its sound.

I just want to forget it happened. It’s a sorrow to keep beautiful things that do not belong in your heart. I just want to forget. But I don’t know how to forget beauty. Or the taste of the sky. Or the kiss of the night wind. Or your ice cold fingers that did not move when I covered them with mine. I do not know how to forget all that touched me and all that refused to.