Meetingplaces

Zelda Godsey-Kellogg

We met under the oak tree
We met at Chipotle
We met at the hyper-pop concert and at the pond behind the biology building
We met at the steps and went running
We met under the bridge and watched toddlers pelt geese with bread
We met at my door, at your door, and at my door
We met, and I couldn’t look at you
We met for the first time
We met for the second time
We met at the gates, and I led you inside past the guards, the other kids shuffling off into the night
We probably met in a past life and were birds: seagulls squawking at each other, fighting over a splattered ice cream on the boardwalk before lady-and-the-tramping it—your beak in my beak, mine in yours, white goodness dribbling down our feathered chests
We met halfway between licks, between escaped breaths, between our pinky and ring fingers
We met—two sugars, lots of cream, pancakes, a side of hash browns, a side of sausage; the waitress—really nice
We met and did it again—you ordered the exact same thing and I memorized it; tipped the waitress really nice
We met wherever we could
We met and when we parted it was a big thing—you, cracking a bottle of champagne on the hull; me, waving from the stern: handkerchief drifting down, praying it never touched water
We met how many times?
We met for the seventy-seventh time and it felt like 1946—the dodgers still, in our minds, safe in Brooklyn, and the White Sox still whooping our ass as the inning stretched long; the popcorn, stale; the hotdog, uneaten (aside from the pickles & the bun, which you let me have)
We met like how we imagined old people met—arms locked in place, feet syncopated, roses, roses, roses
We met, and this time we actually were old
We met on the dog’s bed, toes growing warm, and on the river of saline solution dripping, drip drop, straight into your veins
We met, snickering, in the soft light of our tv as the newsman forecasted afternoon-doom, and tomorrow, yet more doom
We met and one of us had to be the one to close the other's eyes
We met in a small sunken patch of grass from then on
I told myself I didn’t mind, but really, I did

Zelda Godsey-Kellogg (she/they) has received a Scholastic Awards Gold Medal for her non-fiction writing portfolio, The Splintering. She is the recipient of other awards, including those from YoungArts and the Princeton Leonard L. Milberg ‘53 Poetry Prize. She likes to think of herself as a multi-colored hair video game character and wants everyone to know if she bumps into something and it breaks or if she forgets your birthday, it's all a part of the process. She is from South Carolina and currently attends the University of Pennsylvania.