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In Winter
At four o’clock it’s dark. Today, looking out through dusk at three gray women in stretch slacks chatting in front of the post office, their steps left and right and back like some quick folk dance of kindness, I remembered the winter we spent crying in each other’s laps. What could you be thinking at this moment? How lovely and strange the gangly spines of trees against a thickening sky as you drive from the library humming off-key? Or are you smiling at an idea met in a book the way you smiled with your whole body the first night we talked? I was so sure my love of you was perfect, and the light today reminded me of the winter you drove home each day in the dark at four o’clock and would come into my study to kiss me despite mistake after mistake after mistake.