Romantic Poems

I woke before you and did nothing about it. The radiator ticked. Your shoulder rose and fell.

It isn't sadness. Sadness has a shape— you can walk around it, point to it, explain it to a doctor

You have never asked me how my day was and yet you are the only one

My mother's hands could find a fever through a forehead, could tell a melon's ripeness

There's a word for the way your coffee cup still sits on the second shelf where no one else would put it—

Blessed are those who aren't sure. Blessed are those who came to church for the singing, stayed for the quiet,

My father's chair still faces the window where he watched the street as if expecting a delivery

My hands still set the table for two. Not every night—just Thursdays, when my hands forget

You are not the friend who arrives with flowers. You are the friend

I don't know what I believe but I know the feeling when the light hits the kitchen table

The strangest part is the ordinary: how the fridge still hums its one note, how the bills arrive

My father's workshop smelled of pine and something electrical— the ozone ghost of a drill