I realize that I love you, in a booth,
two years after we first met.
A sunset paints the parking lot
in highlighter pinks and yellow-orange
feather clouds. A 7 PM glow.
You hate ketchup. I dip three fries

inside the red, fling the fries
towards your booth
that once glow-
ed in tiny sparkles, now met
with soda spills and cuts. Doesn’t the orange
clash against this gray? This bibelot

you bought me on your trip. You talk a lot
about selling hot dogs and fries
to fly fishers, viewing orange
midnights from a vendor booth,
making wishes upon a comet.
I almost glow

with envy – stop. You glow
a flushed post-Merlot
red, like when we had met
for the third time. Your naked fries
into the trash. I follow, leave the booth,
push the orange

handlebars, orange to-go cups, orange
arrow roof above the building. Concrete aglow
with the leaving day. We leave the booth
and all unspokens behind. I blot
a napkin against the salt, striped bag of fries
and fingers, and am met

with a quick goodbye. Some met-
aphor: the hum of separate engines, polluting
orange nights; the purse, the keys, the fries
in an empty shotgun seat – this afterglow,
these dim street lights. I cast a lot
with quarters at the tollbooth.

At home, I leave my fries in the car, plummet
onto the kitchen booth. I peel an orange,
watch, as our lot dances in the refrigerator glow.