Polly’s truck ate up the asphalt, and the tiny rocks leapt out of the driveway into the street. She’d had enough of her sister’s drunken romance. She said what she came to say, and she drove away in a cloud of exhaust and disappointment.

Minutes earlier, her words hit hard. “Who are you? How did you get into my sister’s life?” She was a cannon. She blasted me. I had no answers, but I sobered up… quick. When she turned to you, you were ready for the fight. You said one word, over and over. “Paul. Paul. PAUL!” Polly’s ex-husband. You repeated it every time she came to an exclamation point about me. When she ran out of words, you had some exclamation points of your own “YOU married a monster! Now it’s my turn!” She could not unlock you. The three of us stood on your family’s front porch in silence.

The early moon was a comfort, like the loons on the Chesapeake Bay.

Once Polly was gone, you collapsed. I carried you upstairs, barely holding onto my own consciousness. I carried you, fully dressed, and tucked you in without a word.

You could have been my daughter. I guess that was your sister’s point. It was the last time we would ever spend even a minute in your mother’s home. Much later you became an orphan and my wife. But tonight we would sleep. I didn’t even kick off my boots. I just curled into you.

You grabbed me like a blanket. You pulled me close. I did my best just to keep you warm.

Hours earlier, before Polly showed up, I held my glass of whisky tight enough to crack it. I drank to get drunk for the both of us, but you turned a bottle of Moscato inside out. You weren’t looking to get drunk. You just wanted to sink as deep as me. Your eyes never left mine. You were going to “keep up” with me.

We were knocked out in your mother’s bed since yours was now a sewing room. (That’s what you get for going away to college.) All night my arm was numb and wrapped tightly around your denim waist. You fell asleep four times, sloshing your words around your mouth. Eventually you were out for good. The pain in my shoulder turned to gratitude. My feelings for you were bigger than pain. That’s something I never felt before. Those feelings of giving.

When I first got to your mother’s house the sun was still a part of the sky. I was ashamed to be so shy. My face was red and I couldn’t do much more than stutter. “Are you al-al-always this much of a drinker?”

“I am now, partner.” You reached out and slapped me on my knee, laughing and singing. “Anything you can do…”

Your eyes weren’t afraid to steady on mine, and every time you spoke you made poetry, unrhymed and honest. You recited lines from songs and psalms until you were too drunk to be coherent. I was twice your age, but I couldn’t make sense of the words you were saying. I’m not a man of words, but your sentences were slices of something sweet. I didn’t have to understand you. I just leaned forward and took a bite.

Even if you were sober, I would have still been lost. You were pretty before I got drunk and just as pretty after. As pretty as they come. Smart but not smart enough (according to Polly) because there you were, in bed with me. That was the girl who dropped out of her graduate program. That was the girl with the hope in her eyes. You told me to stay. I said I would. You asked me how long? I kissed you instead. You fell into it. It was a wet kiss and a little off center, but you put your hand on my cheek and fixed it.

12 Years Later

Now, you turn your back, and I could carve my life story on the stiff white linen of your nightgown. You hold your pillow to your stomach like an unborn baby, and your anger swells your face and makes your cheeks sweaty like freshly washed apples.

Impulsive as hell, you were finally starting to think things through before you ran over reason.

“How did we get here?” The tears fell despite your edict that you were never going to cry over me.

“I don’t know where ‘here’ is.” I was full of excuses and explanations, but I would rather erupt than tell you my thoughts. That’s because my thoughts wrapped around my heart and squeezed like the heart attack I had two years ago. Only, this was worse. You weren’t interested in saving my life tonight.

Maybe you’re grieving the loss of the youth that you had to sell so that we could buy the dirty old trailer we lived in for the first four years. ‘The Love Dump’ you called it. It was tiny, but we never fought back then. That trailer was a sanctuary for our crooked love.

“Older doesn’t mean better.” The venom was just getting started. “And it certainly didn’t mean rich.” You cocked your fist back and punched my transgressions and scribbled love and turned to the bed. Your anger at me is loud in spite of the silence. You went to bed without saying good night. The absence of those words went skyward like the displeasure of Vesuvius.

It’s the quiet before the fiery quilt, but it’s not quiet enough for me to find a way to fall asleep without you. I had already wasted my life when you were still a child. Just a baby to be honest. When you met me, you made up your mind that you were going to marry me. It didn’t matter what I said. I didn’t even have to get down on one knee.

It was your family that begged you, but you weren’t listening to them. You put words in my mouth, You said “yes.” And now you’ve got legal paragraphs wrapped around you instead of a blanket. How are you going to get any sleep?

That’s what you’ll think when you wake up. I think about rolling you over and kissing you and reminding myself how lucky I am. But that’s not how I am. My luck ran out a long time ago. And so will you. You’re almost there. In fact, I might be only one sleep away from being an unmarried man.

You’ll get in the passenger side of your sister’s pick-up truck, and she’ll give me a smile for the first time ever. She’ll take you from me in another cloud of desertion, only she’ll have you. I’ll be left here under the same ash that’s always been there for me since before you knew how to walk or talk or kiss like a wife.

The first and the last night. That’s what I have here for you. Who knew I would be the poet? Who knew I would be the one with all the words?