They sent Michael back to England.
His work visa had expired.
I thought that was
going to be the last I saw of him.
He was way too handsome
for sloughy old me anyway.
I had started to put weight on again.
My *** deciding it was not already big enough.
But my friend Annie said you look really good Kelly.
Your skin is clear and your glowing.

The morning sickness was a clue.
My doctor said three months in honey.
Your having a baby.
The later months were awful I got very sick.
It’s preeclampsia the doctor said.
I was bed rested for three months.
Still no word from Micheal.
I guess he had some English rose in the UK.
Drinking tea in a rose garden or something.
Then the attack came
I went into a coma.
It was three weeks later I awoke.
Someone was holding my hand.
It was Micheal.

I smiled weakly ..the baby I asked?
Fine Kelly they are both fine.
But you
I got a tempory visa last week
But we have to be married in two weeks
Or its back to old blighty for me.

He married me because
I was pregnant I am Sure.
Well double pregnant really
it was twins.
I never thought that he could love me
or that I could dare to love him.
It just felt the right thing to do.

But it changed when the twins arrived
I have never seen anyone as happy as him
well unless you count me in that is.
He was so good looking so gentle
What did he ever see in me?
I was always cheating and losing
on diets to keep myself a size fourteen.
My hair frizzy and wild.
But he made me feel beautiful.
How did he do that?

We went for a Sunday evening walk
It was beautiful fall in central park.
We walked the twins
in their double stroller.
The leaves had turned
to red and amber
under the chilling winds
of late New York autumn.

The late fall sunlight
lit up the park in reds and golds
against the grey outlines of the old city.
A city that had seen many such love stories.
I see Michael holding the twins in his arms.
I could see the love he had for us all
in his beautiful eyes.
The same eyes that had
some major optical defect.
An aberration that
I had no understanding of.
Because he saw me as
beautiful and worthy of his love.

And in that single moment
There in central park on a red carpet
of rustling autumn leaves.
I felt him walk in into my heart
through a door I had always
left unlocked for only him.

As he entered inside me
to a place on this earth
that was destined for him alone.
I closed the door quietly behind him.
Locking it with the only key that existed.
Then throwing it far into the urban woodlands
never to be found again.