On our first Valentine’s Day together
You drove eight hours in a blizzard
to prepare a spaghetti dinner
and give me a book of poetry
specifically meant to be read aloud

In the subsequent years
you would give me
Political anger
Hampden kitsch
a fountain pen
and a ring made of
enduring white gold

But, hey, that first poetry book, though.

Do you remember the one about
the newly freed man
who can’t stay here?

It was heady and exhausting, but
godDAMN
It was the best thing I’d ever heard.

I’ll always be glad that,
even after your eight-hour drive
in heavy snow,

You

would be the one
to recite that poem to

me.