I NVISIBLE I NK What kid didn’t do it back then? —
sneak into the kitchen while mum was out, to pilfer a few precious drops.
Lemon juice. Paper. Just so you could hover at the gas ring, grin brown letters into being as though you were the first.
And you were. In my college bedsit where I scrawled I Love You with a biro’s wrong end to show you old magic before we two, like halves of some ridiculous fruit brought together at last, dropped into anglepoised light cast in its yellow oval on the sheet. How sharp, you, on my tongue as you gasped in wonder. Clasped both hands to your mouth.
Oh if happiness writes so clear might it outlive its paper — survive, as we did that night, thin and sure on air? What if I could find you again: hold this heart like a candle to parched memory and warm it? Conjure those words once more, out of nothing.
Mario Petrucci
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