“I see this and I think of us,” he said, or not said but texted, since most of our conversations are texts, letters and numbers and emoticons sent from phone to phone. Depending on where he is in his apartment, and where I am in mine, sometimes the text messages don’t go through. Tends to happen with photos and videos, that red exclamation point indicating failure.

“I see this and I think of us,” and I want to respond that the blond in the picture should be a tad shorter, and that we would be looking at older comics featuring the X-Men (older as in circa 1975 and earlier, since my collections begins in 1975 and goes forward to present day) and that we’d probably not be standing that close. I tend to hunch myself over long-boxes, looking for something that I don’t have.

“I see this and I think of us,” and I should be happy that this picture reminds him of us, and I am pleased, but I am also convinced that pictures like this picture should remind him of us.

Later, a different, unrelated message: “Appropriate that tomorrow night is the blue moon.”

This message from last night about tonight. He will be here. Lands in about eight hours. Here through Monday night. Might even go to a comic book store, but in our Norman Rockwell tableau of comic book domesticity, there will be two children, one looking for money on the floor and the other asking for every toy displayed at his level.

Blue moon, as in once in a and the place where the Phoenix, posing as Jean Grey, committed suicide, when she felt her — or, rather, Jean’s stolen — humanity slipping away. Blue moon, as in then there suddenly appeared before me/the only one my arms will ever hold/I heard somebody whisper please adore me/and when I looked the moon had turned to gold.

Blue moon turned gold. A 90-minute flight. Landings and take-offs. Hellos and goodbyes.