Promise you'll always love me
as we sit with pastries and a cup of coffee before us;
say it after the bar holding up the awning of the cafe has fallen,
dazing you.
Say it now, when the sun is as bright over your shoulder
as a hijacked 747.
Say it now, when we can have the moment as lovers,
not as litigants;
soothe me with the words I long to hear.
When we were young, we believed
in every fantastic happy fiction we found in the sticky pages
of our heavily illustrated story books.
Then--
tornado.
Then--
regime change.
Then--
attractive others, smiling, as kind as undertakers.
Promise you'll always love me,
say it now, before the Narcan kicks in.
Say it now, while my heart is full for you--
don't wait until the mail comes,
full of better deals, and introductory rates.
Don't wait until the gurney begins to roll,
and some sensible doctor gets a hold of you, making you sign things,
agree to things, and do things, on Wednesdays, when his office is closed.
Listen, life never turns out the way we pictured it.
Quick, before we crumple with age,
before our fingers curl back at us like strangers,
dropping things,
lost and ******* our pants a block away from home.
Promise me
that you'll always love me.
Then we'll finish our pastries,
and walk hand in hand until neither of us can tell anymore
why we came this way,
or how we managed to stay on our feet without each other.
That will be enough for me--
I give you my word.