my Valentine's post (a poem I wrote years ago)

Sunday, November 2, 2003

was that day with you when you woke me up and tried to leave so gently because something was stirring you towards movement and you just could not stay in bed, and ordinarily I would have stayed in bed but when you are near me everything stirs inside of me so instead I stood up and said sure, I’ll come with you to get a coffee.

And inside the coffee shop the three-way conversation made nothing but perfect sense, and the coffee tasted like pumpkin and cinnamon and the November morning was like spring with red-orange leaves, and when we passed through your apartment to change your clothes and standing up you played your guitar, right then I knew I could not stop from falling.

On the 6 train my coffee splashed onto my white shirt, and who of the thousands of marathon spectators lining the sidewalk in baseball caps and t-shirts knew that the girl with the coffee on her shirt was the happiest of them all, moving down First Avenue, holding a Bud Light in a plastic cup, babysitting a stranger’s bike for a moment and kissing you in the middle of the street and not caring who saw.

And a stop at the bar, so hungry and light, then a cab to the grocery store, still hungry and light, and then back to your apartment making guacamole and fajitas and watching football, and afterwards I took a nap on your couch, naked, and later you fell asleep on the same couch watching tv and I looked at you, for the first time in my life knowing this is what it’s all about.