love story – Sarah Stoltzfus Allen

Augury

I wasn’t looking for witchy woo-woo
answers to life’s questions
in the parking lot of the Double Kwik
gas station on my way home from work,

but it was there:
shining navy blue in the evening sun,
a single crow pecked at trash
that hadn’t made it to the proper receptacle.

I searched the rest of the parking lot,
looking for another crow because everyone
knows that “one for sorrow”
is always a bad omen.

After ten minutes standing in sweltering, July air,
I saw it perched on the sign advertising $3.89
a gallon for unleaded gas and $4.99 for diesel,
“two for mirth” making my muscles relax.

It flew down to its partner and I knew right then
the second crow hadn’t replaced the first omen.
Sorrow is here with me, and I think it plans
to stick around awhile.

But soon mirth will be back.
She hasn’t deserted me to forever black days,
I just need to look up
and be patient.

Wishes

When it comes right down to it,
I wish I was a bird.

I want to fly, wind in my face to the next
food source. I want to find shiny trinkets
for my nest, or colored string or someone’s
long blonde hair that a strong April breeze
pulled free from a ponytail.

I want to perch on a telephone wire,
cocking my head to and fro,
watching the humans blunder about
and arguing over what to have for supper.

I want a bird bath in a pretty garden
and some old lady that will faithfully
keep the squirrels from getting to the seed
she had her son pick up from Walmart.

I want to fly south for the winter
with all my kin and not question
if there is enough money in the bank
and enough vacation time for such a long trip.

My therapist once told me that wanting to run away
is a polite way of saying you wanted
to commit suicide. That by saying I wanted to run away,
I had made up my mind that everyone around me
was better off without me.

I believed her for a time,
but now I don’t think she was right.
I think wanting to run away is a sign you need
to take time for yourself, recalibrate your space
and mind so that you can breathe.

I wonder what she would say about wishing
to be a bird.

Math and Science

Love is geometry.
Or maybe it is all biology
and electric pulses in our brains.
Possibly algebra where love equals
(a+b2)/2
or something like that some other
poet has calculated to the enth degree.

Whatever it is, I find myself swirling
and so thoroughly steeped
in the euphoria, that I have no need
of oxygen or breathing or anything whatsoever
if it is not him and his overwhelming goodness.

Coffee Creamer

I wasn’t looking, and she added too much creamer.
I drank the coffee anyway,
the sweet liquid coating

my teeth and tongue with a layer
of slick sugar I wouldn’t be able to rid
myself of without a thorough brushing.

Her forearms tensed and flexed
as she balled her nightgown in her fists
and in her lap trying to hide the anxiety,

and I wondered how we had come to this place:
the serving coffee and being anxious
and not meeting each other’s gaze.

We need to talk, she said,
just as I was standing to leave.

I sat back down and waited.

Summer Tomatoes

Slicing summer tomatoes in a sleepy kitchen,
she hummed something that could
have been a hundred years old
or a song that played last night on the radio.
Golden waves obscured her face,
and I couldn’t see the smile I knew was there.
Couldn’t see the way her lips turned down
at the corners in delightful, exquisite mischief.

Dripping fingers arranged thick slices
on a plate too formal for this moment,
the crunch of salt and pepper grinders
breaking the silent, ardent air.

When she tipped her head back, popped
a ruby half-slice between her kiss-swollen lips
I couldn’t help but make my way to her.
I caught her smile then, a laughing look that said
every word my heart needed, and then some.
Soft curves fit against all my angles
and I wanted summer tomatoes,
the press of her warm, sleep-quiet body against mine
for the rest of my life.

Goldenrod and Ironweed

Why are you crying, my love?

She wiped her eyes,
sniffled her nose,
and lifted her gaze to the window
above the sink.

The goldenrod and ironweed are blooming,
she said, slipping her hands into soapy water.
The earth is settling her melancholy
deep into my bones,
unfurling her funeral flowers alongside
roads and in the low, wet places of the hills,
one last majestic sight
before fading into rust and gold.

One last burst of color to hold
during the long, bleak of winter.

That is the most poetic way I have ever heard
anyone describe their allergies, my love.