Poems from the Interim: This Morning I Woke up to Silence
This morning I woke up to silence
And sunlight breaking through the
Cracks between the windows and
The blinds
You and our dog still sleeping
I lay there for some reason thinking
About the night we got engaged
It bothered me that I couldn’t remember
Exactly what you said to me
I know we had just gotten back to
My apartment after carving pumpkins
At my mom’s house
I know I’d had a pretty strong idea
What was coming
I remember you on your knees
Your voice shaking
And me thinking to myself
That I’d never actually seen you nervous
I remember wrapping my arms around
Your neck as you knelt there on the floor
Leaning into your lap until you toppled over
And saying, “Of course.”
Of course I’ll marry you.
It was never really a question
It just suddenly came to be
Even before it was
I also remember laying in bed
the morning after
Listening to you call your parents
to tell them the news
I was lying on my stomach smiling
Into my pillow
Somehow hearing you tell them
Is what made it real
Isn’t it strange how sometimes we
Need to see things through other
people’s eyes?
I remember all that, but I don’t
Remember your actual words.
Shouldn’t I?
The first day in the hospital,
I remember you walking into my room
Having called your parents to tell them.
Your eyes were heavy, your head
Shaking no
(You often did that, shook your head no,
Like you were disagreeing with what
was happening,
As if you could stop it with your
disapproval)
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard my
Mom that upset,” you said,
On the verge of tears yourself.
That made it real, too. Both you,
And your parents.
I think there was still a part of me
Hoping this wasn’t real, thinking
If everyone would just ignore it
We could move on
Now here we lay in this bed
8 months later
Having moved on
(haven’t we?)
Completely different people
Than we were last spring
Than we were a year ago
Than we were yesterday
Than we were when you first
Asked me to join our stories
And sunlight breaking through the
Cracks between the windows and
The blinds
You and our dog still sleeping
I lay there for some reason thinking
About the night we got engaged
It bothered me that I couldn’t remember
Exactly what you said to me
I know we had just gotten back to
My apartment after carving pumpkins
At my mom’s house
I know I’d had a pretty strong idea
What was coming
I remember you on your knees
Your voice shaking
And me thinking to myself
That I’d never actually seen you nervous
I remember wrapping my arms around
Your neck as you knelt there on the floor
Leaning into your lap until you toppled over
And saying, “Of course.”
Of course I’ll marry you.
It was never really a question
It just suddenly came to be
Even before it was
I also remember laying in bed
the morning after
Listening to you call your parents
to tell them the news
I was lying on my stomach smiling
Into my pillow
Somehow hearing you tell them
Is what made it real
Isn’t it strange how sometimes we
Need to see things through other
people’s eyes?
I remember all that, but I don’t
Remember your actual words.
Shouldn’t I?
The first day in the hospital,
I remember you walking into my room
Having called your parents to tell them.
Your eyes were heavy, your head
Shaking no
(You often did that, shook your head no,
Like you were disagreeing with what
was happening,
As if you could stop it with your
disapproval)
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard my
Mom that upset,” you said,
On the verge of tears yourself.
That made it real, too. Both you,
And your parents.
I think there was still a part of me
Hoping this wasn’t real, thinking
If everyone would just ignore it
We could move on
Now here we lay in this bed
8 months later
Having moved on
(haven’t we?)
Completely different people
Than we were last spring
Than we were a year ago
Than we were yesterday
Than we were when you first
Asked me to join our stories