Emergence

The winter’s fog was clustering in its halos

Around the lights that lit the campus walkways,

Creating gates in the slalom of that evening

As Dana and I slipped back to Bixby Hall.

I do not remember her name anymore, just

That we had been playing cards in the lounge

Of Emerson Hall, a women’s dorm, until mid-night.

She was blonde. She was pretty. She opened

In a way that I had never seen before.

It was the first time I realized that there was a passage

That had always been there. Maybe Dana did, too,

Since he and I had both risen to escort her back

To her apartment off campus. Walking with her,

We both rehearsed the glibness of uncertain

Manhood as we strolled east through a time

That was hard to mark in our fog. When

We arrived I think we both thought to leave,

But she invited us both inside, because it was both

Of us there. What we talked about was not as important

As our talking until three, when she finally shut

Herself for the night. Now as Dana and I walked

West through those gates of fog, he asked me why

I had had to come. Could I explain to him that we needed

Each other this time? That it could never happen

Again? That she, with her hair sluicing the night

And her shimmering shapes, was not important?

That even the fog had had to be so thick

So that the next time the path would seem so clear?