Surface Temperature What do you say and what do you leave out on a first date, with someone as intense as yourself? I marvel at the beauty of the surrounding mountains, but pine for sunsets. We talk of relationships losses and gains. She-married once, me always with someone. I say “they crack us open like waves in the ocean” then the tide recedes and I’m contained in this mountain station, gauging the impact of no horizon with no distant point to fix my gaze on. We discuss art and finally the weather, perfect temperature, the air indistinguishable from skin in the summer evening’s strange caress. What we didn’t say is held between us in a parting hug, and reiterated in my subtle tug from her lingering, warm embrace. I generate my own uneven heat. Closest to my flame, I burn with the un-extinguished flame of a distant lover and am cold with loss in other places. I flee alone in measured steps. The movement presses night’s cool relief onto my skin.