Maybe it could only have happened at the time of year 
when trees are frothed with orange 

and the body of the earth is dying. On the pier, 
we might have been chilled through our windbreakers.

The cold might have driven us inside, towards each other, two
chipped comets, cooling suns. You might have reached for my hand;

I might have reached for yours. Maybe 
if you had cracked open the earth

and slid the yolk into my palm.
Only then could I have been tricked 

into promising everything.