Both of us were ravenous, but moved

on a path that was not unsimilar

to a double helix; two beasts,

as wary as leopards, but bipeds,

each one circling, inspecting

the genetic make-up of the other.

How do I remember

such a moment?

We were barely acquainted.

Two strangers pole past

each other on the river.

Eyes follow, eyes

gleam in the darkness.

Neither reaches for a weapon.

We were helpless to contain

that which our upbringings enjoined.

Reactions such as these are biochemical.

At almost the same instant

we picked up our cups, and took

sips of our coffee.

There we were,

two distinctive molecular complexities,

caught, as it were, at the opposite

ends of a coffee-house

in a gravitational griddle:

all ready to be processed.