They met at a party, after he noticed her in the kitchen frying chicken thighs.

He came up and stood close to her. She asked him, had he ever noticed that chicken thighs were shaped like Ohio?

There were two thighs sitting in the tiny black pan spitting grease--two little Ohios, cooking down and down. He thought he'd like to stand even closer to her, so close that their shoulders touched. He did.

They talked into each other's necks, over the party noise and the sizzling. When the chicken was done, she shut the burner off without taking her shoulder away from his. She said she didn't want to kiss him because she had a greasy face, and it was embarrassing.

He told her that was okay, he could stand behind her, holding her with his arms looped under hers. Their faces didn't have to touch at all.

She leaned back and told him she was going back to Philly tomorrow, and that Pennsylvania was shaped like a pound cake. Hugging her tight, he disagreed--he said Pennsylvania was shaped like a razor blade. They were facing the stove and the wall, and nobody else at the party knew what they were doing.

She wanted him to do a full nelson on her, just as kind of a joke. He did it only until her face turned red, then he stopped.

He wrapped his arms around her neck. Her pulse beat in the crooks of his elbows. She would go back to Philly, she said, but they would meet again after this party, because life is so long.

Pressing her against the still-warm stove, he said okay then, he would go back to Chicago. She laughed and told him Illinois was shaped like a hand grenade. He said yeah, he knew that.