Hold fast the ether

We met across the oval, where words spun and whirled in the air like music. Pure poetry. I noticed her and she noticed me. It seemed that at birth she must have sipped from the fountain of wisdom. I hung on every word. We both spoke different languages, ones we had never heard before, yet somehow understood each other perfectly. She took a puff of a cigarette and behind the smoke I saw her upstairs in 1852 and on project steps 150 years later, looking equally elegant. The small of her ballerina’s back always so perfectly curved. I listened to her wise music. Her eyes tasted like dark chocolate. I sometimes wish time stopped so we could have cradled everything like a precious jewel as I turned it in my hand and saw how the light glistened off the facets in the sun crystal synesthesia and we spun the ruby and passed it back and forth transforming each touch.