Nine Years Later

Anniversary

“I’ll wait for you. And should I fall behind wait for me”

-Bruce Springsteen

We clink glasses,

exhausted from another late night

in a long week

and I tell you that 9 years ago tomorrow

we were in New Orleans

me feeling sick

from the heat but soon sicker

from eating year old cake.

And you smile.

And then you tell me

where we were every year since

2006 was Monroe

2007 was Brooklyn

just like 08

but 09 was New Orleans again

and 10, and 11 we did dinner at

that new brick oven pizza place in our neighborhood

carried flowers, crossed bridges

12 was Florence

and I smile

thinking about standing there, outside

the Thai place in Pittsburgh sixteen years ago

our first dinner finished

the wine all drank

when you said

What do you want to do now?

And I said,

It doesn’t matter.

As long as it

doesn’t involve me going one way

and you going another.

And it hasn’t love,

It hasn’t.