I am also good friends with this man's son. He and I went to graduate school together. We shared an office when I was in a PhD program. He has a fourteen-year-old daughter. I have a thirteen-year-old daughter. He is a poet. I am a poet. He's a really wonderful guy. Adores his wife and kid. Loves the Upper Peninsula. Ditto me.
After we left the retirement party, I stopped by my wife's place of employment to say "hi." It was good to see her smile and hear her laugh. And now I'm waiting for her to get home from work. We'll share a few quiet moments together before I go to bed. Nothing monumental will take place. We might discuss the rock my son found at the party, or the chocolate cupcake I ate tonight. Small details of love.
That's what the poem I chose from Billy Collins is about tonight. Love and devotion.
Saint Marty had a fine, fine night.
Genesis
by: Billy Collins
It was late, of course,
just the two of us still at the table
working on a second bottle of wine
when you speculated that maybe Eve came first
and Adam began as a rib
that leaped out of her side one paradisal afternoon.
Maybe, I remember saying,
because much was possible back then,
and I mentioned the talking snake
and the giraffes sticking their necks out of the ark,
their noses up in the pouring Old Testament rain.
I like a man with a flexible mind, you said then,
lifting your candlelit glass to me
and I raised mine to you and began to wonder
what life would be like as one of your ribs--
to be with you all the time,
riding under your blouse and skin,
caged under the soft weight of your breasts,
your favorite rib, I am assuming,
if you ever bothered to stop and count them
which is just what I did later that night
after you had fallen asleep
and we were fitted tightly back to front,
your long legs against the length of mine,
my fingers doing the crazy numbering that comes of love.
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| Counting on love |
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