by Alice Godliman

It’s like a blanket;
for a moment you’re just one thread in the weave of fabric,
each fibre the warp and weft interlacing in time with the music–
each one holding and being held.

Shoulders touching, hands clutching, mouths shouting;
screaming lyrics so loudly they can’t be heard,
strands of Kate Bush pulled through material of the moment.
A simple touch – fingers clasping to each other as fibres knit together,
knowing this instant is important–
The fates of mythology made sure of it when they braided ourselves together,
each moment of contact a point of intersection, and each beat the mechanism of weaving together the fibres of our cotton lives:

The passing of tissue under a bathroom stall,
The sure grip of three plastic pint glasses, artfully balanced between practiced fingers over the crowd,
A half tube of lipstick passed in front of a grimy mirror,
Hips moving behind hips sharing sweat and memories.

And the heat eased by a cold blanket of night air and fingertips passing half a Marlboro Gold,
caught between index and middle finger, stitching me to this moment and this person,
and this smudged shared lipstick. 

But the night is a blanket and I wrap myself in it.