When We Meet

There are so many things I don't know.
I don't know if, when we meet, it will be
within the bounds of decorum
to scoop you against my chest and hold you
for the space of seven heartbeats.

I don't even really know
if the joy will hold that long,
if the leaves' quick gesturings,
refracted through a foreign window
and brought back in a buck-basket
(dumped out on a muddy bank,
to the mirth of all beholders)
will mean then what they mean now.

I don't know how to call back
that wandering truant to the nest,
and I don't know if I should.
But I know that if I press my palms together,
and open them slowly, light flares up, like
a stray drop of butter burning on the stove.