I count it among the great gifts of this generous world that I am still able to spend an evening talking with you. That you and I, after all these years, and the disappointments, and the uncertainties, and perhaps even the indifference, can share a small space of earth, share a drink, pull our bodies in close, and tilt our heads together. I marvel that I can watch you laugh at some joke I have told, your chin tipped down to the floor, your eyes closed in a seizure of giggling. There are many things I regret from these first twenty three years, and I wonder at times how my fragile existence will survive the disappointments and losses of the next twenty three. Then you look over at me, your head held up by the nape of your right hand, your deep brown eyes lucid with some ineffable grace, some sorrowful beauty that pulls my being forward once more, into those infinite inches between us, trying anew to find some way to close them. Falling headlong with you into this space is enough to brace my soul against almost anything.