Almost is the longest word,

stretched as it is between

your lips and mine;

almost makes you vanish

each time you look away

and smile at something

far from me,

as if to say

‘we are three now, you and I and

the distance.’

Here, in the almost,

neither banished nor invited in, small things

draw chasmically

apart,

and each time a kiss slips short

of your coy stranger’s grin,

I feel a fear of endless falling

that must be infinity

or indifference.