2013-04-07

bruorton: (Andromeda Galaxy)
2013-04-07 04:58 pm
Entry tags:

Scarf

for [livejournal.com profile] kaph

What color was it, that scarf you made for me
when we were courting? Green, I know,
but which shade, exactly? I can remember
unwrapping it well enough, and my cat
happily chewing on the hemp twine it came
bound in. And all our love letters, our long
phone calls, our five-month engagement.
What did we think we were doing? We were
scared at moments, I know, but also
in love, and we couldn’t wait, and were pretty sure
we knew a good thing when we’d found it.

But that scarf, I thoughtlessly left behind
(my best guess) on a mid-town MTA bus somewhere
in those first couple years—abandoned
not unlike the restless tenor of my letters:
where did that eager passion go?
Into the long, exhausting hours I worked those years,
real jobs like I’d never had to do before, sometimes
two at a time? Or was it just I felt nothing
more to aspire to? I sometimes look back and think:
you were sold a bill of goods, my dear.

What I do remember these days
is to take special care with this new scarf
you've knitted me, wider than the first.
It’s the least I can do, in a marriage that seems
a continuous exchange of unrepayable kindnesses,
and when I still can't recall what shade that first scarf was,
only this one: pale grey-green, like winter sun
shining through a cresting wave.