Saving Daylight
Miriam Levine
May 2019
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On the Steps of the Miami Beach Cinematheque
Miriam Levine
When I left the sad movie feeling happy,
because the movie was perfectly beautiful,
a stranger came up to me and kissed my hands.
I would have run away but he was so graceful,
his acrobat body bent in a bow of homage,
his narrow feet bare in white slippers.
“Do I know you?” I asked. He spoke
with more kisses, deft, dry, tongueless.
The stars flashed and faded.
The stoplights were melting roses,
passersby nearly naked—not me,
my hands pale as Christmas paperwhites.
Soon I’d be eighty. My hip ached,
His scent was lime, and the nape
of his neck smooth as summer jade.
“We love the ladies,” he called, as he bowed again
as if to royalty and flourished his hand in twirls of farewell.