Tinder Says, “It’s a Match” / Her

I put down my beloved copy of Antigone

& roll across the bed’s wrinkled sky

until she is in my hands.

My phone wakes with her

it’s only the 10th or 11th time

these fingers linger upon

this French translation, gifted to

a girl learning the rules of language,

parsing the difference between

what sounds good and feels right,

et juste comme ca, un autre fille

wears the earth as her crown.

I imagine how the thought of me

first thing in the morning moved her.

Below, a siren answers its own call,

parting Brooklyn traffic with the threat

of conscience or fine. I take my time,

summon her words with my touch,

her face on my phone erases my grip

on decency, the way a finger on a screen

can be anything you want it to be. What

is love, if not extended, mutual fantasy,

like that year I found myself

with those denim-clad monks, plying

the sunrise with songs & candles,

every morning, before dawn, chanting

on a dark Vermont mountain

I return to, only in meditation, waiting

like the sky, to be broken by someone

who believes each beginning and ending

requires devotion.